


can i be the only hope for you

by dancinbutterfly



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Aftercare, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Boys In Love, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Relationship, Canon compliant drinking and drug use, Canon-Typical Violence, Communication, Complete, Confessions, Crossdressing, Dancing, Dave & Klaus Hargreeves During Vietnam, Dom/sub Undertones, Drinking & Talking, Emotional Porn, Emotional Sex, Explicit Consent, Face-Fucking, Falling In Love, Family Issues, Finger Sucking, Friendship/Love, Frottage, Gay Sex, Genderfluid Character, Genderqueer Character, Gentle Dom Dave Katz, Ghosts, Holding Hands, Hotel Sex, I'm not listing them all - its 1968 - adjust your lenses accordingly, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Intimacy, Kissing, Klaus is a walking talking anachronism and he gives zero fucks, Laughter During Sex, Licking, Love Confessions, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Men Crying, Mutual Pining, Naked Cuddling, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Past Gay Bashing, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, Points of View, Post-Coital Cuddling, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Rough Oral Sex, Self-harming sexual behavior, Sex, Soldiers, Spoilers for Number Five, Talking, Time Travel, Topping, Touch-Starved, Touching, Vietnam War, War, a dysfunctional disaster getting properly dicked down in the softest sweetest way, emotional honesty, spoilers for The Day That Wasn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2019-11-04 20:38:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17905223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: Klaus is so special the pull of him is overwhelming. Dave doesn’t think he’s strong enough to resist his gravity. He’s too powerful. And fuck it, Dave doesn’t really want to.or(How a fairly ordinary soldier falls in love with Klaus Hargeeves, superhero, time traveler, and medium)[Completed]





	1. hollow point smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus thinks it would take someone special to love him. Contrary to this assumption, Dave’s pretty gone on Klaus right out the gate and he’s not special at all.

Klaus makes a joke - after their Sargent said he was the kind of crazy asshole only a mother could love a week after he appears in country - that it’d take someone a lot more special than a mother to love a fuck-up like him. Dave was already getting used to the insane shit that poured out of Klaus’ mouth every thirty seconds or so by then, but whole exchange is enough to make his blood run a little cold and his heart skip a couple beats. From the moment this skinny lunatic appeared in a literal bolt from the blue - half naked, wild eyed and gorgeous - Dave’s been falling in love with him. And Dave knows he’s nothing special but Klaus makes him want things so he can’t let that sleeping dog lie. Not when it bit Klaus before sacking out like that. 

“You can’t know that.” Dave protests, bumping his bony shoulder with his own.

Klaus gives him a Lon Chaney grin, the kind of thing that looks too big to be done without wires and tape. He’s all gallows humor and exhausted resignation, and shakes his head. “Oh sure I can. And how!” 

And he’s off babbling again. It’s first time he’s talked about his family which saying something because he seems to talk about everything and nothing, constantly. He rolls his eyes a lot as he talks about his family comes up, though he does have them. Dave thinks he might be Catholic. They sounds Catholic anyway. Monied Catholic, with 6 brothers and sisters who he never writers home to, a mean SOB pop and a mom whose maybe got some kind of mental condition(she sounds lobotomized on account of the how dingy Klaus makes her out to be and the way he describes the way his old man treats her but he’s not going to ask, that shit’s personal) and they had a butler of all things, like on Batman.  

“Just like that,” Klaus agrees, snapping his fingers. “But holy daddy issues Batman, there was nothing funny about our little variety act.” Then despite his words he giggles, the sound coming out sharp and sad. 

Dave recognizes the emotion under the laugher, even if he wasn’t used to expressing it himself. He knew what it was like to have a family(or a memory of one) you want and miss and carry like a lodestone you can’t shake at the same time. He notices - how can he miss it, jeez - that Klaus doesn’t talk about them loving him. 

“I’m not really an easy, or maybe you’ve noticed?” He knocks his knuckles on his helmet. The hollow sound seems to tickle him. “I take a special kinda patience to tolerate. Let alone love. But hey, I roll a beautiful joint. Care to share?” He manifests it from inside the helmet, somehow. Dave is baffled. It looks like a cigarette but when Dave takes it from his long fingers, the scent, sweet and heavy hits his nostrils. In the time that he’s known Klaus they haven’t been in able to get off base to get a case of 33s, let alone score some grass. 

Dave says yes because Klaus is a magnet. He’s just a boring chunk of mining town ironfilings trashed when they gummed up the local works where Klaus is so special the pull of him is overwhelming. Dave doesn’t think he’s strong enough resist his gravity. He’s too powerful. And fuck it, Dave doesn’t really want to. 

All Dave’s ever been, to be honest, is homesick, scared, and queer. He’s comfortable with that state though. He lives in that space. Has for half his life, so long that it’s become him - since that miserable May night his dad found him the athletic catalogue between the mattress and box springs with dried cum on the pages where a girly mag should have been and tried to kill him. 

He crawled out of that beating with his life. She called their neighbor to get him to a hospital when his dad wouldn’t let her call for an ambulance. She got his boots on his feet so he didn’t have to walk out of town barefoot. His mom gathered his clothes and snuck him two-hundred dollars for a bus ticket or some other new start as he lay gasping in his front yard, left it under a bush for him to find.

He knows he shouldn’t be alive now so everything since has been extra and Dave tries to act accordingly. He’d been doing alright stateside. Nothing fancy - a job hauling boxes not far from Argyle Public Library, a stray tabby that made its home on his fire escape, a few friends at the local queer bar that were safe to talk to if he took the long way around, never going directly from work or home. He liked small things and small pleasures. He was getting by. And then the shit got stirred in a jungle around the world and his number came up. 

He actually laughed in his kitchen when he realized a draft notice was in his mail. Dead man walking, he’d thought. He lived through his dad trying to murder him for being a faggot only to get shipped in the jungle to die. That’s just perfect. But Klaus makes him feel so alive.

He keeps those shoelaces on him in country because they’re his reminder his ma loves him when, like Klaus, he doesn’t write home but he’s left everything else behind. This time is extra. It’s all extra. He’s always known it. 

He is just as shit scared as everyone other asshole in their platoon. He doesn’t have his high school diplomas or GED. He’s not a good soldier. He’s not particularly smart. Hell he’s not even the best queer in the unit that dubious honor goes to Klaus. Being bent shines off him with a defiant sparkle is so brilliant that its surpassed only by his razorblade mania approach to living that has to be clear to anyone with eyes protects something so soft in his heart that Dave wants to make a home inside the man where he can lay his head down and just sleep through this war, this century and out into a place where they’re both safe. 

What Dave is, if they were giving out superlatives, is the most grateful for every fucking second he’s got left. He’s a man who appreciates a bonus. If anything knowing that he has extra time is what makes Dave special.

Being around Klaus endangers that delicate balance he has with the universe because he makes Dave feel greedy. He makes life feel worth trying to hang on for _more_. It feels like tempting fate. He’s pretty sure it is.

Not that Dave does anything with that at first. He just sits in Klaus’ shadow, laughs at his jokes, plays straight man to his prankster, a Watson to his Holmes. It’s a good place to be, more entertaining than any book or card game could ever be. He knows that they’re in the boring rinse and repeat hell of war but Klaus always seems happy to see him, thrilled by his attention, encouraged by his support and Dave feels like he’s actually growing for the first time since he was a kid.

Then they go on libo after a month of trudging through swampy valleys and hilly jungles of the nightmare that is patrols and Klaus immediately disappears into the streets of Saigon. Dave’s impulse is to go off after him but he doesn’t know where to start looking. His understanding of the language is cursory at the very best -how to get a taxi, a beer, a bathroom, a hot meal. 

How does he even start to look for Klaus?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES If you've never been in a fandom with me, lol, you are gonna find out, I like to put info about the research I did and general authors notes in the end notes. Feel free to ignore. 
>   * 33s were the GI nickname for local beer in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. 
>   * Batman has been around since the 30s but specifically we're referencing the Adam West Batman which aired from 1966 to 1968. Klaus landed in A Schau in 68 so Dave would've been familiar with the West Batman, Ward Robin Romero Joker and Kitt Catwoman including the "holy _____, Batman" tagline. Alfred was in the 60s Batman but I honestly cant remember who played him. My bad. 
>   * Lon Chaney was the original Phantom of the Opera yall. He was also the Wolfman and Mr. Hyde. He was a creepy fuck but also a very nice man who was FAMOUS for what he did to his own face with wires and tape. Like a solid quarter of your goth are belong to him. Believe it when I tell you he's one of GWay's influences.
>   * In general this story is going to take lots of liberties with the way the Army and liberty works but fuck it. i dont care. time travel isnt real and Klaus would be in a brig under investigation as a communist spy for just appearing in that camp so fast your head would spin so whatever. I'm putting more of my interest into the way the history and shit of people living their lives works.
>   * This is pre-Stonewall and we're gonna get fucking into it.
>   * Oh yeah how could i forget! Lobotomies were still a thing in the 60s and 70s. If you were a woman, your husband or father could just...have one done to you. If you were a child your parents could do it. Literally anyone with power over you could get it done with enough manipulation and a doctor who had no ethics. You can thank a Democratic President, Jimmy Carter, for the National Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research that was literally put together to stop that shit because no one of any economic class was safe. Cant remember which Kennedy was lobotomized by her family but...one of the daughters was too strong willed and silenced. Prior to the 70s, it was just done. JFC can you imagine? If you can't? GOOD. If you can, another reason to vote Democrat. The party that actually stopped fucking lobotomies. Just saying, why isnt that one of their slogans?(Everything is politics, politics is everything.)
>   * Why yes all the titles are from MCR lyrics, why no i dont think that is going to stop any time soon. babies I've been bandom trash for a decade. don't quote the deep magics to me i was there when it was written. i write this with an autographed print of The Boy hanging over me and a Mikey Fucking Way shirt in my closet. i have no where to go but up.
> 



	2. got nasty blisters from the money she spends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shopping on libo with Klaus and Maria(not her real name) may actually kill Dave, if Klaus's general Klausness doesn't do it first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to AnonCoward and TheWrongKindOfPC for the support in the developmental stages of this *hugs*
> 
>  **Quick warning** \- Klaus is an addict, its show canon that he's traded sex for a place to sleep, and comics canon that he's traded conjuring and sex for drugs so... while there's no explicit proof that saying Netflix!Klaus has got a history of sex work? My experience and education is in social work and community mental health and my take on his behaviors and attitude is that he reads on screen like a textbook addict with a history of occasional sex work... so that's how he written here. 
> 
> Love doesn't fix addiction, period, although being busy can mask it. I dont plan on going too deep into it but prostitution is mentioned quite a bit in this chapter though none takes place so read with your self-care in mind.

Thank Christ Dave doesn't actually have to figure out how to find one soldier in the chaos of the capital city, because Klaus reappears an hour later with the prettiest little boom boom girl Dave’s ever seen. She’s maybe, _eighteen_ , and they’re all over each other like puppies in a box. It’s unsettling. 

“Right, this is important, my dear, this is Dave. Dave, this is Maria.” 

He leans in and lays a conspiratorial hand on Dave’s shoulder. It feels like he’s been set on fire. He tries not to blush. It’s not easy. He swallows about six times in the ten seconds before Klaus continues his speech.

He introduces her with a flourish like she’s the queen of England _(“Aunt Bess is amazing,” Klaus had said when Chaz accused him of putting on airs like the queen all over camp, “So thank you. Though Uncle Phil’s a bit of a racist but his jokes are hilarious. Isn’t that always the way with assholes like that?”)_. She laughs at him which Dave isn’t sure is a good thing or a bad thing. There are some guys in his unit who share women and he just… he would. He’d do just about anything to be close to Klaus but she’s so young. 

He’s starting to rethink his estimate. She’s probably closer to sixteen than eighteen. Jesus. They’re probably close to twice her age. That’s the line that really is bothering him here. He didn’t think Klaus was like that. For a few terrible moments Dave is sure that he had everything wrong then Klaus opens his mouth. Bless his beautiful fucking mouth.

“Obviously, that’s not her real name, but that’s the name she chose to give me and it’s a personal policy to never question people’s pronouns or chosen names, you know? We are who we decide to be and everything else is bullshit our parents put on us. Anyway, isn’t she beautiful?” As Dave watches, he cocked his head then looked affronted. “Oh, shit. Right. Sorry, that was rude of me but really, darling, you’re gorgeous. And that dress, it’s a masterpiece and you’re a masterpiece in it.” It’s a traditional Vietnamese number, like so many Dave’s seen since arriving here. He doesn’t see what's so special about it even if she did look amazing but Klaus continues, giving her a little push so she twirls. “So where did you get it? Because we are going shopping. I need one in every color and I have no makeup on me, not even gloss.” She laughs with a hand over her mouth and Dave watched and tried not to die of jealousy right there. 

Maria laces their fingers together and beams at Klaus. “Come on, GI boy. I’ll show you where a smart girl shops.”

Dave grabs him by the arm before she can pull Klaus out of the room without him, because seriously, what the fuck. “Hey, man, what’s going on?”

Klaus turns and gives him a look of resigned exasperation edged that reminds Dave uncomfortably of his mother when she came home and found chores undone. Again. 

“What’s going on is that I have to be able to do a halfway decent winged cat-eye in this imperialist hellhole and I can’t do that with the shitty pencil liner they sell at the corner drug. I mean my god, it's like chalk. I know there's a war on but how am I supposed to work under these conditions?” 

Klaus puts a hand on his arm and his mouth dries up like the riverbeds before the rainy season. He tries to croak out a question but he's frozen. But his confusion must translate because Klaus charges ahead. Or maybe he does that because Klaus is always moving forward even when he seems like he's sitting still.

“Dave, sex workers know everything. No one's chattier than a cumbdumb john. I swear, once they blow a load they're all annotated combo guidebook/white pages of wherever you happen to be at the time. If Maria's paid attention to half the bullshit the assholes she's had to put up with have babbled at her she's got the keys to the kingdom in her beautiful brain. Trust me, as a former sex worker, I can verify." He wiggles his fingers in Dave’s face to emphasize this before grabbing him by the collar so they're eye-to-eye, stressing the truly dire nature of what he's about to say and turning Dave inside out with each puff of hot breath on his cheek. “And I have absolutely nothing to wear for this glorious vacation.” 

He pushes away and spins around in their little hotel room for emphasis. He’s all about physical gestures as punctuation. He’s a bit like Danny Kaye that way. Dave always had a bit of a thing for Danny Kaye. 

“Klaus,” he begins but it doesn't really go anywhere.

“I mean seriously! All the working girls speak better English than some of our esteemed colleagues, they know the lay of the land, and look at her style! Look at the color sense!” Dave looks. He doesn’t get it but Klaus has a point. The colors are very pretty. “I’d rather fund whatever she’s going to spend the money on than some two-bit hack ‘guide’.” He makes air quotes and Maria laughs again. “Call it whatever you want, charity or professional courtesy or me needing some decent threads, some lipstick and a good liquid liner. Come on.” He drags the last word out on a whine that has at least seven separate syllables. Considering there’s only two letters in ‘on’ its quite the feat. “I need you. I have no idea what men actually wear in the sixties. I only know about flower crop tops, peasant skirts and tie-dye bell-bottoms.”

Klaus very often makes no sense. He talks like he’s not actually living this life. But he’s funny and he’s fun and when he talks about his life, the real things, the ones that matter, they land a certain way. 

So while Dave questions a lot of things Klaus says but he has absolutely no doubt that when Klaus says he says he used to sell himself, he’s telling the whole truth and nothing but. It unmans him, that kind of casual openness of what should be a black shame. It makes him believe everything else he says, even when it’s total insanity. It makes it easy to follow him and the teenager into the city for a shopping spree on money that quite honestly he doesn’t know the source of because they don’t get paid that much. He knows they don’t. 

But Klaus is asking him, specifically, to come along. He can't actually say no. "Okay. Let's go."

"Wonderful." Klaus says, giving a delighted little clap with his hands in front of his chest. It's adorable and Dave is just so fucked. 

They buy a bag full of cosmetics in an impressive French department store and underclothes for all three of them. Dave especially insists they buy new socks buy the arm full because foot rot is the enemy of all soldiers and they head out again, this time towards the less westernized part of own where the French starts to fade and the Vietnamese takes over. 

Klaus stays true to his word to buy clothes for Maria, dressing her up seems to be truly joyful for him but, some of it, Dave can’t help but notice, is traditional Vietnamese women clothes that are far too big for Maria. In one particular shop, Dave has to work very hard not to stare and fails as Klaus shimmies into a sleeveless blue dress Maria called a cheongsam with unrestrained glee while Maria distracts the owner with endless questions about fabric and cost and other minutiae first in English and then in rapidfire Vietnamese that seems to make them both disappear. 

“I feel like a fairytale in this,” Klaus whispers, smoothing the fabric down over his thighs with his palms. He took off his boots to try on the clothes and he looks oddly elegant yet vulnerable with his hairy bare toes peeking out from under the vibrant blue of the hem.

“You look like one,” Dave blurts because his whole life is nothing but saying or doing the wrong thing because he has no fucking impulse control. Only with Klaus, that’s not a problem. He’s the first, fuck the only person, who doesn’t mind. Those words escape his lips like magic, Klaus looks at him like he’s hungry, like he could eat him alive. Dave just smiles back feeling utterly helpless. It’s a long moment, hanging in the humid air, thin as a the silk thread of the cheongsam and just as strong. 

It doesn’t break so much as reach it’s natural end when Klaus nods. “Right. I’m getting this. And one for Maria too.” He turns to Dave with a questioning brow quirked. “Do you want one?”

“No. I’m good.” Klaus shrugs a suit yourself shrug and they move on.

The next store is full of tight, brightly colored Western casual wear. Dave fairs absolutely no better there. Klaus is just as devastating all long limbs in pale yellows and blue pinstripe. He barely restrains himself from saying something stupid again. He does let Klaus by him a shirt and slacks there though. He is starting to really wonder where the money came from but he doesn’t question. Very few of the answers he’s gotten since he left the US are good ones. He just takes it as it is and says thank you. He doesn’t want to go out on liberty in camo fatigues or his dress uniform. A lot of guys do it but he finds it fucking classless.

“Come out with us,” Klaus whines to Maria when they’re done shopping for the day. “Please. I’ll cover your regular rate for a night and if you want to work, that's fine but we’re having too much fun to stop now. How will I know what terrible drinks to buy without you there? I don't speak Vietnamese. I barely speak English.” He swats at a hand through the air he speaks, and Dave can relate. The mosquitos here are devouring him alive. “I know, you don’t have to of course,” he swats the air again and Dave starts to keep an eye out for mosquitos near his own face. “Of course not, but how will I know what terrible drinks to order without you? Shh.”

She laughs and flips her thick dark hair off her shoulder. She’s a vision in a purple mini and white boots and Dave wonders what it’d be like to want her. Simpler. Safer. “Sounds good. But you cover dinner for my son and mother.”

Klaus makes a little wounded noise at her ultimatum. “You have a son? Aw. How old is he?”

“Six months. He stays with my mother. You pay for dinner and I take you both out, show you Saigon.” 

Dave has a few ideas of where a six month old might have come from, given her age and profession. He doesn’t know if Klaus does. He hasn’t be there that long and they’ve only had a couple skirmishes but then again, he’s seen things in his own way back stateside. So maybe he does too. If so he doesn't say anything.

He watches as Klaus drapes his arm around Maria’s shoulders like he does with Chaz or Jacobs or any of the guys in their platon, like a buddy or a brother. “I’ll make it rain, for him and Grandma. You watch.”

Dave trails after them, mouthing that to himself. Make it rain. What does that even mean? Then multicolored dong flutter from his hands down into her hands and he says it again, laughing. She laughs too. Oh. That’s what it means. 

They wait in front of a little laundry while she disappears inside and she comes out looking really relaxed for the first time since they met her. Dave can’t blame her. If he had a kid and parent to worry about of with a war on, he’d be worried every minute he wasn’t sure they were taken care of too. 

She takes each of their hands and squeezes. “I know the perfect place.” Then she turns to them with a big grin. “Get us a ride. They stop better for you than for me.”

And Klaus practically flings into the street, cackling.

Dave heart fucking stops as horns honk shrilly. He shouts, “Hey, watch it!” but it only does so much good.

Klaus laughs as he narrowly misses being hit by a pedicab and nearly wipes out in the dusty road. The cab stops, and Maria climbs in as Dave goes to help him up. 

“Hey, man, what are you thinking?

Klaus shrugs. “Got us a cab didn’t it?”

“Yeah but one would have stopped eventually.” He’s mostly alright but his palms are scraped. There’s no blood but Dave can’t stop himself from running a finger across each of the pale scratches over the strange HELLO and GOODBYE inked into the inside of each hand and can feel Klaus shiver at the contact. "You don't have to take crazy risks."

Klaus gives him another maniac grin but he doesn't pull his hands away. "But where's the fun in that?"

“You could have really hurt yourself.” He gives his hands a gentle squeeze before forcing himself to let go. "I need you in one piece to watch my six."

Klaus is looking at him _again_ and Dave’s not going to survive the night let alone his tour if Klaus keeps fucking looking at him with those dark desperate eyes that keep asking him to explain but Dave just smiles back. It seems to be enough but Dave's still breathless and his heart won't slow down. He can't have Klaus hurling himself around with a deathwish. He just can't. He brushes the dust off Klaus's knees and shoulders and tries to take a breath. "Let's go. Maria's waiting for us."

"That she is." He straightens Dave's lapels in return even though he never did anything to dishevel them and pats his chest so the chain of tags clink together. "Those shots won't drink themselves."

"No. No they won't." Dave feels like his skin is burning and needs those shots after this damn day. He thinks he might need all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes 
>   * Reginald Hargreeves seems like the kind of douche who would drag the Umbrella Academy minus Vanya to tea with the Queen of England and Duke of Edinburgh every year or so for his own reasons and I stand by this headcanon.
>   * My understanding of the Vietnam War is: The French colonized Vietnam a few hundred years ago. After WWII a group of communists lead by General Ho Chi Min were like "fuck this, we are not ok with being colonized get out of our country." and Russia and China were like "hey, communism, good for you! you use our system of gov't so we'll back that play." America was anti-Communism but more anti-USSR and the excuse America used to vindicate pretty much all its international actions during the Cold War wasDomino Theory, if one country falls to communism, everyone will (sounds familiar...). In Vietnam seems to be a smoke screen for the West supporting their allies - the French and _"supposedly"_ the non-Communist Vietnamese. There were still a core of white French there influencing shit in That Way That Imperialism Does til the Fall of Saigon in the 70s when the Viet Cong won and America pulled out. ALL THAT is to say the period that Klaus was there was the Nixon era when America REALLY started ramping up(not that America wasnt fucking things up before) the French were still present so a French-owned store is my best guess for where Americans would buy Western-style items.
>   * I am not, in any way, going to touch on trans culture in South East Asia however in pretty much every culture, trans women are vulnerable and some end up in sex work so suffice to say, a man interested in women's items wouldnt have been news to someone like Maria even in the 60s. However, Klaus is a white GI so his platoon could have been an issue.
>   * Where there's war, there is sex work - commercial, survival and human trafficking. That's a fact. Maria's name is not Maria, she has a Vietnamese name, but giving names in same culture as the local military force is an old game for sex workers. You can see the actress I headcanon as Maria in the cold open, she's the pretty girl in purple dancing and drinking with Klaus and Dave. I don't advocate "boom boom girl" as a term for a Vietnamese sex worker but Dave is a product of the era and the Army. I'm not digging to to deep into it cuz thats not what this fic is about. I recommend 1st person memoirs for more on the topic. 
>   * Don't ask where Klaus got the money. Some things are better left a mystery. Do keep in mind that its a lot easier to steal shit in a world with no CCTV cameras.
>   * Danny Kaye is an adorable (and notoriously bisexual) song and dance man of old hollywood. Look him up he's a gem.
>   * Netflix!Klaus is a totally different animal from Comics!Klaus and Netflix!Klaus is a genderfluid queer who is comfortable with his assigned sex at birth - fight me.
>   * Did ya spot Ben? :D
>   * Chapter title from To The End off of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.
> 



	3. i would even wait all night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner and dancing and drinking and dancing and drinking and... Dave doesnt know what to do with Klaus when he's looking at him like that. He may do something drastic.
> 
> Also ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blessings upon Decoy_Ocelot and AnonCoward for the handholding.
> 
>  
> 
> Warning for discussion of Reginald Hargreeves A++ parenting - seriously.

The first bar is actually restaurant. Maria orders for them, local food that Dave can't pronounce, noodle dishes and rice dishes and things made with chicken and pork and different kinds of peppers that make him sweat and pant that is accompanied by beer and rice win. Klaus demands an explanation of everything and drinks like it's what he's come to Vietnam to do. 

He's so skinny yet he inhales everything put in front of him with the delight of a child. It's a joy to watch him eat. He hums and shimmies and praises the cook and because someone out there hates him, he moans around each mouthful. Dave has to look away a few times because he can't watch that beautiful fucking mouth make those noises and maintain his composure. He's only human.

In between dragging Dave to the edge of humiliating himself in public, Klaus carries the conversation. It's really just a series of questions about the food ( _"Is shrimp paste actual shrimp or is it just shrimp flavored and lying to me like prawn crackers?"_ ) and anecdotes that get increasingly more horrific and nonsensical as the meal continues ( _"So Five picked up on the fact that she throws paper and dared her to a two out of three so the next time so when old Daddy Dearest was running endurance experiments on us, she had to try and make him stop. It ended the trials for the day and we all go out of the house for a solid twelve hours of glorious freedom but when we came back Allison ended up locked in the muzzle whenever we weren't eating or training for the next month." "Jesus H.Christ, how old were you?" "Aw, jeez, who remembers. Elven, twelve, possibly thirteen? Yeah. Can't have been older than thirteen because the whole thing was Five's idea, the little shit. The old man's always been a conniving little bastard."_ ) until he laughs his thin, fragile laugh and clicks his chopsticks together. "This place is amazing. Not the kind of party scene I was expecting but still amazing. Right?"

Maria agrees with a toast of her wine and they both salute her and rink themselves before a new plate arrives at their table. Klaus dives in, chopsticks first, and lets out another obscene moan around the thin utensils, eye closed in bliss, before drawing the chopsticks out slowly. "Fuck me but that's good."

The thoughts the sight inspire are pornographic. For a moment, all he can see are visions of Klaus: Klaus moaning for Dave, Klaus's mouth open and begging or full and stretched, Klaus's eyes closed with a different kind pleasure as kissed him, touched him, had him in all the ways he could imagine and a few that he probably couldn't think of right now. He is trying so hard not to show it but he's been told he's got a terrible poker face.

If Klaus can see he shows no indication as he digs back into the dish with fervor. Dave can feel his smile stretch thin as he collects himself, taking another sip of beer as the ice in their glasses is replaced. He's so distracted it catches him off guard when Klaus holds out a piece of pork on a chopstick, are outstretched across the table in offer. "Dave, seriously, you've got to try this."

Saying yes to Klaus has become second nature. He always offers because he doesn’t have much but what he does have he likes to share and Dave likes to be with him so always accepts. Klaus glows when does, like a hostess whose dinner party was going well only it’s usually bad beer, worse cigarettes or an uncomfortable conversation about something absolutely no one asked to discuss. 

Dave reaches out to take it but Klaus is faster, popping the spicy-sweet morsel between his lips with precision of a expert marksman as he closed his teeth on the T of “Yeah, sure why not?”

Their eyes lock across the table and the lemongrass and ginger are bright and beautiful but they've got nothing on Klaus' grin. He seems so pleased at the way Dave sighs, enjoying the taste, as if he'd done the cooking himself. He taps Dave's lower lip with the chopsticks before pulling back. 

Dave realizes, with the cataclysmic impact of an asteroid hitting the earth, that even with Maria at the table with them, this feels like a date. He has been on a grand total of three, all of them shams in high school with sweet girls he liked well enough but who would never have made him burn like this. The greed to have more he’s been feeling since Klaus appearance in his life starts to rise in him and sharpen from a general desire to a hungry force that almost feels like a physical push. It straightens his spine with the most potent kind of courage he’s ever tasted. It makes the rice wine and beer seem weak while making him feel strong. 

Strong enough to be brave.

"Want to go somewhere a little wilder after this, let loose?" He asks and it only feels like jumping off a cliff. 

"Fantastic," Klaus beams. "Maria, can you ask our server for the bill? I'm about to tip extravagantly."

He does but everything changes when the money changes hands. It's like a candle is snuffed and some kind of creeping shadow starts to close in on the party. Dave sees him pull in on himself almost instantly, something changing that none of them can see and on their way out, Klaus gets waylaid by...well, it seems like nothing. He stops by the exit, leaned against a table by the door. His eye twitches and he flinches as he shakes his head. He's mumbling to himself. Dave catches "No. No, fuck, leave me alone. I'm trying to have a good night."

He sends Maria out to get a cab and comes up behind him. He's never seen anyone who heard voices before. He doesn't know how to handle that kind of thing but leaving him alone with it is no option. 

"Klaus?"

"What? Yeah." When he smiles this time, it's a skeleton grin. "Dave, hi. Sorry. Headache. Too much spicy food on that week Western palate maybe. You know how it is right, buddy?"

Dave frowns and catches him by the arm. "Not really. How is it?"

Klaus shrugs. "It's fine. We should get out of here. These old places giving me the creeps."

"Don't want to walk into a haunting right?" he asks, trying to make a joke, like Klaus always does. Except that Klaus goes rigid under his hand, his bicep becoming steel. 

"You know what? Let's go. This was fun but there was talk of shots earlier and I feel like dancing."

He doesn't shrug Dave's hand away so he rides the wave of courage to hold on. He doesn't pull away from that and it feels like his heart's been replaced with machine gun rapport. "That sounds really good. I like dancing."

He does like dancing. He's not particularly good at it but it's a good time. The whole truth is that he's ready to do anything to take that awful look out of Klaus's eyes. 

Maria takes them to a discotheque on the European side of the city, a trip that they have to ride in a taxi to reach. Klaus faces the window the whole ride, eyes squeezed shut, hands pressed over his ears, forehead pressed to the glass. Dave rubs his back through his shirt like his mom used to do for him when he was sick. By the time they reach their destination, Dave hasn't really fixed whatever is wrong but Klaus' shoulders have dropped by an inch. 

He rolls out of the car and shakes himself like a dog before paying for the ride. If Dave didn't know what to look for, he'd be a whole different person but there's fear and sadness around his mouth and the corners of his eyes. He storms into the place with an energy and bravado countermands that as though if he's just loud enough, he can shove the darkness away. 

The place is much nicer than anywhere Dave has been in the States. He feels genuinely under dressed in his blue gingham shirt but once the drinks start flowing and the music starts to pulse through them, it's easier not to mind. They find their footing on floor under the glitter of the discoball for a little while alone and that's alright. Every time they stop to have a drink pretty local girls drag Klaus off to dance and no one is looking at him. 

Then they run into Chaz who insists on buying them drinks all and Klaus never says no to a shot. The four of them cluster around and Maria teaches them a Vietnamese cheer. 

Klaus doesn't buy shots after that. He buys entire bottles for the group that rouses a resounding cheer of excitement and thanks. He preens under the affection and Dave wants to touch pet him. With Chaz in the group, though, it's safer to just click glasses with him and accept the drink. He is completely unprepared for how Klaus hooks their arms together to drink their shots, faces close together and wrists and hands bumping. He can smell Klaus' hair and skin and the ginger and lemongrass under all the alcohol still on his lips. 

They really do dance after that. Klaus wasn't kidding about wanting to dance. He's unselfconscious and free even if he looks a little ridiculous. Dave has never been too hip but he knows that whatever Klaus is doing is nothing Dave recognizes. It's less any set moves like the twist so much as moving however his body sees fit because the bass or rhythm has told him too. It's beautiful and exciting and makes Dave feel safe to dance too and he often feels like he can't move from the scrutiny of the world.

Dave finds himself drifting into him as they dance. He doesn't know how much of that is instinct and how much of that is the alcohol letting him go after what he wants. Klaus just writhes beside him for several songs until they bump into each other, back to back. As if suddenly realizing that Dave is there, he fixes him with an expression of absolute seriousness and holds out his fist to him for...some reason. He's not sure exactly. It's ridiculous yet genuine and Dave just stares. He doesn't know what to do with that. He doesn't know what to do with Klaus in general. 

Klaus is too much in the best of all possible ways and Dave is entranced and happy to be. He really could stay here, standing lost in this haze of longing forever, but slowly, Klaus straightens up and stares back, his eyes mirrors of want. Nothing's hit harder than the way Klaus is looking at him and oh, god, Dave can't breathe.

The moment reminds Dave of watching Cinderella in theaters when she came face to face with her prince at the ball a moment of impossibility made real by art and music. He's looking at Klaus as a fairytale for the second time today, psychedelic rock and colored light projected on a man who makes him feel realer than he ever as in his life.

"Drink?" He asks and Klaus nods. He doesn't smile, which is telling. Everything makes Klaus smile usually. Now his expression is serious almost sad and Dave grabs two glasses and one of the bottles Klaus bought off the table before spotting a quiet corner in the back near the bathrooms. There are beads hanging from the ceiling in a way that makes several small, separated little alcoves of space. Several have couples talking and making out in them but one is open and Dave leans against the wall, trying desperately for casual. He probably doesn't succeed. He channels his nerves into pouring booze into their small glasses. Klaus joins him against the wall just in time for him to come full to standing from setting the closed bottle on the ground at his feet.

"Did you know this was back here?" Klaus asks, leaning against the wall with one shoulder, head tipped against the wall. Dave shakes his head. 

"Just took a wild guess. Otherwise I was gonna say we should go out and get some air."

"Mmm." Klaus looks down into his glass before turning so that he's facing out towards the dance floor "This is good. I like it here. Lots of air."

"Well, good thing they're not rationing that too. You know there's a war on."

Klaus snorts and another giggle slipping out so he seems almost surprised at himself. He brings his glass up as if he's going to drink but stalls, the laughter catching him and keeping him as he leans back against the wall with the supine poster than makes Dave want to see how far he can bend. He shakes his head then turns to look at him. "I can't believe how much I want to be here."

"I'm glad." He tries to sound like a normal person not a loser with a heart that's moved out of his body and into Klaus' fist. "I was worried about you earlier." 

"No. I mean here, in the damn Sixties." He shifts and turns into Dave so his whole body is facing him. "Jesus, you're practically in the Stone Age. They treat women like slaves and still think being queer means you're insane here. Not that I'm not crazy but wanting to suck some cock occasionally is the least crazy thing about me. I made a list once for a therapist. She didn't find it very funny but it was useful. "

For a moment, Dave can't speak. No one just comes out and says shit like that. No one. Especially not in the United Sttes Army where a dishonorable discharge can make you utterably unemployable stateside if not get you arrested. He does a quick check, finds Chaz on the other side of the bar with a pretty girl who is possibly a prostitute or at least very busy if the way her hand is invisible between them is any indication. He's the only person who knows they are and he could care less about anything but her.

Dave shakes himself. This is Klaus and, well, Dave is pretty much no one. He takes a deep breath and grips his glass. He can keep talking like this is normal. That's what Klaus needs. "So what is?"

"Besides my family?" He bites his lip and downs his entire drink like medicine. "You saw it didn't you?"

"I don't know." That at least is the truth. He has no idea what he saw beyond a Klaus upset and in pain. "I know you're not alright, man. Anything else you gotta tell me."

"Earlier." He rolls his head into the wall and he looks kicked. "I don't want to see them. They won't fucking leave me alone. Jesus Dave, I just want to live my life but it's like no matter what I do they show up, screaming and crying and mutilated and they always know my name. How do they always know my name?"

The club is smoke-filled and hot yet Dave's body is cold. He wants to hold Klaus but his arms won't move. Thank christ his voice still works. "I don't know. Who are they?"

Klaus looks like he wants to summon up another smile but he's too tired, too empty. He just shrugs and pushes the wall so he's standing up straight. "The dead. Like I said. Crazy." 

"I didn't say that."

"I did."

"I didn't." Dave repeats. He doesn't know anything about what happens when you die. He knows that the esteemed town Baptist preacher who controlled their neighbors that being a Jew was sin worthy of sending person straight to hell in the same breath he decried faggotry and Dave's old man had always politely told him where he cold shove it even if they only drove into the City for shul on the high holy days. Dave knew that old bastard was full of it because there was nothing wrong with being Jewish, with the way his mother glowed as she lit shabbos candles and his father's voice would change into something soft and deep when he spoke Hebrew, and there was no way liking men could be worse that the affair the preacher was having with three different married ladies not his wife so who knows what else folks back home got wrong about the afterlife? Maybe Klaus can see the dead. There was an old widow woman whose house he had to walk past to get to school who swore up and down her husband visited her every month in her dreams and plenty of folks believed her. Why couldn't what Klaus be saying true. And even if it weren't, whatever he was seeing was bothering him and electro-shocks probably weren't going to help him now. "Klaus I didn't say that."

He squints at Dave through something what is far too close to despair and holds his glass a little closer to his chest. "I'm aware I sound psychotic but they're real. You've got no reason to believe me and I know that. I wouldn't waste my time on a basketcase junkie if I were you either, don't worry. I just wanted to have today be a good day. We both know I shouldn't be here." 

He's resigned. He's saying good-bye. He's ready to pull away, and fuck, Dave can't let him. Not yet.

Maybe a decade and a half of living like the other shoe is already dropping makes pushing through the shit easier for him than it seems to be for the rest of his guys. In some respects it’s easier than for him than it is for Klaus though he doesn’t really know for sure why. 

A guy like that, the kind you can look at and just know is a fairy like Dave worked so hard not to be, should have an easier time of this thanks to all that practice. For Dave, making a move was theoretical with a few exceptions in the form of sad encounters in bathhouses that were never what he really wanted, to love the way he could have loved if he were keen on girls. 

But when Dave touches him, it's easy where Klaus seems almost shy. He doesn’t pull away. Klaus pulls back from ordinance and gunfire and shouted insults from their higher ups but never contact, whether someone's trying to hit him, or hug him. All touch is a welcome guest for Klaus. 

Now though, as Dave reaches out to him, he's got this look, confused and young and asking _“Why me? Don’t you know who I am?”_ Dave doesn't have the right words to answer that unspoken question. He can't talk like Klaus, so he just touches his dear face because that at least Klaus always accepts without thinking he's patronizing him or lying to him. 

Dave tries not to marvel at the perfect way Klaus's cheek fits in his hand; it’s just the right size, like God used his palm as mold for his face. Shit, they've been drinking a lot but there's no way other way to read Klaus as he leans into the touch like a big, sexy cat. Dave’s stray never nuzzled into him like this, never warmed to his touch this way. Klaus is so starving, pleading with the way he bows into Dave’s body that kissing him is inevitable. Gravity. He thought before, in the jungle, that Klaus was gravity. He was right. Those lips are a world into themselves.

What’s the most surprising is that kissing Klaus is so easy, so right. It’s like walking. Breathing. He doesn’t feel special because you can’t be special if something comes this naturally. He doesn’t know what Klaus was talking about but it feels like adoring him was something Dave was always meant to be doing. 

“You can’t say that kinda shit to me, Dave. Oh my god, I don’t know what to do with that.”

Dave didn’t mean to say it out loud. Possibly they’ve been drinking too much. “Sorry. You don’t have to do anything with it, man. I’m just drunk, my feelings ran off with my mouth.”

“What are you insane?" Klaus makes a small outraged noise and Dave braces himself but impact is amazing. "I have to be kissing you. Get the fuck back here, you beautiful asshole. I’m not done feeling at you yet.”

Maybe he’s drunker than he thought. “Feeling at me?”

Klaus tugs him in by the waist and oh. Oh fuck. That is something very special. 

“Don’t sweat it. Trust me, in fifty years that sentence and everything I say will make perfect sense.”

“Fifty years with you sounds amazing.”

Shit. Shit. He didn’t mean to say that out loud but Klaus is looking at him again, with the stunned and confused expression of a lottery winner who never bought a ticket. He’s wearing that eyeliner he bought, its smudged from the dancing and drinking but it doesn’t make him look like a girl. In fifty years it would be a different century. He can’t imagine it but he can imagine Klaus. He’d be a ridiculous old man but he’d fit right in with flying cars and jet packs.

“Klaus?”

“Hm."

“You have to to say something. You always have something to say.”

He doesn’t say anything now, just shakes his head before leaning in towards Dave where they stand against the wall and presses their foreheads together. The music is loud and pulses in his ears. The Doors. He loves them. Jim Morrison is a genius and his voice thrums like sex. No one’s watching them here. No one cares. They’re a world away from the cops or doctors or anyone who would care and he’s rendered Klaus Hargreeves, the Motor Mouth of the 173rd Airborn, utterly speechless. 

Dave isn't actually sure if he likes that or not. Klaus lights up when he talks. Right now, in the haze of yellow and red glow refracted from the disco ball, he's glowing. "I'm good right now. Like this. Kiss me again?"

Dave can do that. 

When he does, it's like his whole life is starting over right from this moment. Klaus leans into him and moans into his mouth louder than he moaned over the meal and licks over his teeth and sucks on his lip and when they break apart for air, he says "Take me home?" 

Home is just a shitty hotel room, and they have to make sure Maria is okay before they leave, Dave can do that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes 
>   * So, the jam for this chapter is Turn by the Wombats. Seriously. The lyrics of that are so fucking DAVE/KLAUS I am in hell.  
>  _Maybe it's the crazy that I'd miss_  
>  _It won't get better than this_  
>  _I like the way your brain works, I like the way you try_  
>  _To run with the wolf pack when your legs are tired_  
>  _I like the way you turn me inside and out_  
>  _I like the way you turn_  
>  _I like the way your brain works_  
>  _I like the way your brain works_  
>  _Baby, it's the crazy I like_  
>  _I think I saw the world turn in your eyes_  
>  Yall I'm suffering
>   * General policy starting after WWII is that no homosexuals were allowed in the military. Men claimed homosexuality to get out of the draft to the point where it became a joke in Vietnam. But at one point during the draft you actually had to be able to prove it so... YEAH. Like Klaus said, they were looking for warm bodies.
>   * Sodomy and homosexuality was still illegal in every state and up until the 80s it was considered a mental illness in the DSM. Rights? WHAT RIGHTS? They could arrest you in your house, publish your name in the paper, fire you, and put you in a mental institution. Not kidding. This is a year before Stone Wall
>   * Did a little research on Vietnamese drinking and seems like most of the drinking is done in restaurants and they replace the ice in your glass which sounds like a QUALITY plan to me.
>   * I genuinely believe that Sir Reginald would put Allison in a muzzle if he thought it was appropriate. i also like to imagine it happened so often enough that there were a variety of gags for Klaus to steal that she had been made her wear as punishment. Yall can thank my platonic soulmate nev-longbottom for that second part of the headcanon cuz she's that kind, bless
>   * So. Electro-shock therapy is mentioned in this chapter. Here's the real deal: I will not hear shit spoken about Electro-Convulsive Therapy(ECT) as it is currently administered in our modern mental health system, yall hear me? It is very often a LAST resort and one of the FEW things that ACTUALLY WORKS one major depressive disorder. I know people for whom it has made a life-or-death difference both personally and professionally. ECT as we do it now is way more precise and controlled and genuinely has helped people. **Do not come into my house and talk shit about electro-therapies .** THAT SAID. Electro-shock as it was administered in the 60s? OH MY GOD! It was like trying to hit a fly with a sledge hammer in a lot of cases. There's a reason "electroshock" had the reputation it did and Dave's not wrong for being concerned.
>   * Also mental health meds did and do still take YEARS to get correct. Psychopharmacology is complicated as fuck yall. Every brain is different. Just because a cocktail doesnt work, doesnt mean one wont at some point. But it was so much more blunt and less regulated and badly understood in the past, not to say we have a full grip on it now, good lord. So. Thats some of the historical attitudes that they had that I do not hold and do not in any circumstances encourage as a mental health professional.
>   * Walt Disney's Cinderella came out in 1950. I havent figured out how old Dave is but he would've been a kid to tween when it came out and even as a boy, he would have fucking seen this movie. There were just not enough movies that came out back in yon days and Walt Disney animations have always been baller. Period.
>   * chapter title form Summertime because this their first kiss so of course it is
> 



	4. you're unbelievable, ah, so unbelievable, ah, you ruin everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus and Dave go back to the hotel and things devolve rapidly from there into something a lot more messy, in every possible sense of the word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I dont write porn that isn't important to the plot. Everything is enthusiastically consensual and full of mutual affection but, y'all, Klaus is not a healthy person and he does not fuck like a healthy person. His actions in this chapter as in all chapters are my attempyyin keeping with his show behavior. Heed that and the tags. That's as much as I'm going to warn be able to warn without spoiling but we all know the show so please keep that in mind going forward. Further specifics are in the end notes but if you can handle it, I recommend just reading it to retain context. As always read with your self-care in mind. 
> 
> Blessings on Decoy_ocelot and AnonCoward for helping me pinpoint what was missing. I couldnt have done it without yall. 
> 
> Big thanks to all yall who are reviewing! Yall light a fire under my ass with each one omg. This is the most generous fandom I've been in years and I love all of you so much holy shit.

They find Maria who allows herself to be put in a cab before climbing in one of their own for several miles of absolute torture. Dave's never experienced anything like it.

They can’t kiss, can’t look at each other, can barely brush their fingertips against each other where they lie beside each other on the seat. Klaus hooks their pinkies together and bursts into laughter. It is the best sound Dave’s ever heard. He has to bite his lip and look hard out the window. The car itself is about thirty years old and it rattles and coughs down the street like it’s slowly dying. The fear of Saigon traffic in an old ’52 sedan does nothing to soften his cock or cool his need to get Klaus behind closed doors and rip his clothes off.

He’s never had a lover. Not really. Not someone he could touch more than once, get to know. He finds himself looking in the window’s reflection at the wispy reflection of curly hair and a long pale neck that he wants to lick. God. God he wants to put his mouth everywhere now that he knows how good Klaus tastes. 

The hotel feels like a new planet. They started here this morning but in the dark and moonlight, with Klaus pressed up behind him as he fumbles with the lock, Dave feels like an astronaut. He's fucking weightless and he's going to get to the moon before any of the Apollo men. 

"You have the most amazing ass," Klaus purrs, standing behind him and actually grabbing one cheek. Dave's hand jerks at contact tears a jagged line the paint on the door with the sharp tip of the key. "Has it always been that tight or is it all the hiking through the jungle that's got it so firm?"

"I, uh, I don't know."

His middle and index fingers walk around his waist to his belt and work it open blindly. "I'll have to investigate."

"Let me get the door open first, Klaus, you'll get us arrested."

"I would love to see them try." Klaus bites the back of his neck. "I'll have you know I'm a very important person." The next nip catches his earlobe. He tries to breath and wills his hands not to shake. God he's been steadier under gunfire than assault of skin on his skin. "One phone call and I could probably stop this whole war." 

"You should do that then."

"Nah. Not until after we fuck."

As if in agreement, the key sinks into the lock and they both groan in relief. Dave turns it and pushes inside. He keeps moving, carried by his nervousness until he hits his bed and around turns around to see Klaus delicately placing a sign on the door for housekeeping before kicking it shut behind them and throwing it locked. 

His teeth shine in the semi-darkness as he grins and Dave feels like prey. "God, you're beautiful. Take off your pants."

Dave's happy to but his hands suddenly feel like catchers mitts. His fingers won't cooperate. His belt is the most difficult machinery divided by god or man. He sits heavily on the mattress feeling like ten types of disaster. He should have had less to drink. It's a wonder he's still as hard as is his considering how nothing else seems to be working. "Shit."

"Nope." Klaus observes for a moment before he sighs and shakes his head. "Nope, nope, no. " 

He sheds clothes as he crosses the room to Dave, unbuttoning his fly, kicking off his shoes, stepping out his pants and yanking his shirt over his head and throwing it into the room with perfunctory movements that lack seduction but are painfully sexy because Klaus is stripping for _him_.

He's in nothing but his underwear and socks when he reaches the bed. He has almost no body hair anywhere on his insanely pale skin. Even his naval and the line down towards his waistband is thin wispy black strands Dave can barely make out in the low light. Without thinking, he reaches out with his thumb to trace it, from the inelegant white fabric up to the dip of Klaus’ belly button. His breath catching as his fingertip slid over soft skin and snagging as it dipped inside the divot made Klaus’ belly twitch under his hand. 

Klaus’ gasp was much louder and he smacked his hand away. “Ah ah ah ah. This wasn’t the plan.”

Dave laughs and feels like it’s been punched out of him. “There’s a plan?”

“Short answer? I’m going to make you scream. Long answer.” Klaus shoves him back on the bed and rips his pants off. Dave actually hears fabric tear. They catch on his shoes for a minute before Klaus does… something, and then he’s in the terrifically embarrassing position of being buck naked from the waist down and only the waist down. 

“Klaus, what?”

Klaus is working on getting his socks off and doesn’t seem to notice the blush as it rushes up his chest and neck to pool to in his cheeks and ears heating up so he’s sure he’ll catch fire.

Klaus is going to be naked in a second and he cannot be lying there with his dick out and his shirt still on. It’s unacceptable. So he pushes up on one elbow to try and yank his shirt off over his head. He’s in no shape to battle with the buttons. 

He’s not prepared for Klaus to take full advantage of his distraction by crawls onto the bed between his legs. Dave’s got his shirt over his head when sweat-clammy palms land on his inner thighs and push them apart. “What the--!” Dave nearly shouts with a mix of the terrorized shock that only comes from being caught unawares and a supercharged pulse of the electromagnetic arousal that Klaus has pulled from him since the moment he appeared, half naked, bloody and wide-eyed. 

Dave definitely pops off some buttons getting the shirt off so he can see him. 

Klaus is sprawled on his belly, like Dave used to when get with his comic books, idly studying his dick like it will reveal the same ever changing beauty as a kaleidoscope. His already large eyes are wide as he looks down at what Dave has always considered an unremarkable if respectably sized cut penis with a slight right curve to it. 

That was before Klaus nuzzled it with his bare face, prickly stubbled cheek and rough beard around his mouth and the silky smooth skin of his infinitely kissable lips. “Fuck,” he groans, buffeting his head and shaft in hot wet air. “Your cock’s beautiful too. I knew it would be. I can tell these things.”

“What?” Dave sputters. Who says those kinds of things out loud, even in bed. Honestly? 

Klaus ducks his head just a little to smile into the patch of skin where his thigh and groin meet. He asks “They speak English in What?” and it comes out muffled. His words are hot and the tickle a little and make no sense. 

He is not sober enough for this. “What?”

Klaus throws his head back and laughs, long and loud, like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Dave has no idea. Maybe it is. He knows he’s not the butt of the joke though so he’s content to listen to Klaus laugh because he’s naked and happy, a thousand years away from the haunted man he was earlier tonight. 

He reaches out and twists a single finger in a curle like he’s been stopping himself from wanting to for weeks. Klaus tenses for a second before visibly loosening when the contact stays soft. 

For one ugly moment, Dave wants to know who hurt him and kill them. He knows how, and knows he can, thanks to this man’s Army. He twists the curl around his finger again and lets it go because there’s going to be enough death outside and tomorrow. He can get angry then. 

Right now, he wants, needs something different. He gives the curl a gentle tug and smiles at Klaus in through the shadows. 

“Hey, sweetheart, come up here.”

Klaus doesn’t wave him off so much as he seems to steel himself. His shoulders square and he flexes his fingers a few time. “In a minute.”

Dave frowns. “Was it- I won't call you that if you don’t like it.”

“I like it. I like lots of things. I especially like you.” 

Klaus clambers up the bed, an plants a kiss on Dave it knocks him flat onto the pillows for the first time. The ones that follow are so fierce he fears he may be ripped open. 

“I like you too.” He says hating how woefully insufficient that is but knowing that too much more could send him running. 

“And I want you.”

“You got me. As long as you want, I’m yours.” He makes himself stop there. He’s already said one heinously confessional and unfortunately true thing tonight. That’s enough for one twenty four hour period. 

“But where will I keep you? The storage space we're provided is terrible and you’re so big,” Klaus muses, kissing random skin on his slide back down the bed and leaving Dave a patchwork of invisible marks that he thinks must glow blue for how hot it was and still is. Dave is floundering for a witty comeback as Klaus makes good on his earlier threat. He was placing random kisses then suddenly, somehow, his throat full and working around the head and shaft of his cock, his nose in the coarse hair at the base, and his lips are stretched wide where they are resting against Dave’s skin. It all happened so fast Dave feels like he’s got vertigo from the change in sensational states. 

He thinks he may be sobbing with pleasure. The only reason he’s not screaming is because he ripped the pillow out from behind his head and shoved it in his mouth as Klaus swallowed and moaned and curled his tongue this way and that. He was leaking precome that mixed with salvia which Klaus would try to suck the escaping mixture back into his mouth with a filthy slurp to prevent messing the blankets up every few seconds as he worked the shaft with his tattooed palms and hot lips, the firmness of his soft palate a blinding point of resistance for his head to press against before slipping down his smooth throat again and again. He’s hardly beginning to get used to that when Klaus makes a pleased humming sound. 

He chants Klaus’ name as he scrambles for purchase on the blanket with one hand. The other gabs for Klaus’s soft curls. A hand covers his and helps him form a fist. He doesn’t really want to. He wants to twist and pet but for Klaus he can grab a handful and hold on. 

He gets himself up into something like a sitting position with his other position a few seconds later. Klaus seems to have been waiting for that. As soon as their eyes meet, he winks, smiles around his cock, and takes off. 

It’s the most skilled head he’s ever received. Klaus is beautiful doing it. 

It’s also fucking horrible. 

The noise belong in a bathhouse not a bedroom, gagged and thickly choked as Klaus coughs a little every time he sucks Dave's cock all the way down to the root. Grey tears drip down his nose onto the bed. His lips are possibly turning a little blue. His jaw has been stretched wide for too long and his neck has been working too hard at a strange angle that is so fast it must hurt. 

Dave lasts about ninety seconds before he can get Klaus to stop with hands on his shoulders and words he can’t actually hear over the rush in his head. 

Klaus glares at him as he pulls off with bright red lips and eyes pink from choking himself over and over. There are muddy tear tracks on his face where his mascara and liner have run together. 

He wipes at one with his knuckles. They leave smudges on Klaus’ cheeks and come away smeared salty and blackened. Dave wants to throw himself out the window that after everything, he’s what made Klaus cry. “Klaus I’m so--”

“Ugh, no. Boring.” Klaus cuts him off. He rolls his eyes, wipes his face and pushes his bangs off his forehead in disinterest. “Don’t bother. ” Dave’s too stunned to stop him as he gets up and marches naked to the bathroom. When he turns on the light inside, shadows make silhouette into an impressionist painting as he looks back point a finger at him and declare “You can shove your apologies. Just be ready to fuck me when I get done in here because I’m not going back without enjoying that dick of yours least once.”

He doesn’t ask or wait for Dave to answer. That’s for the best. No way would Dave make that promise. At least he’s got some time now to figure out what he’s going to do and say when Klaus comes back out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes 
>   * Klaus is a wildly unhealthy person and has sex like one. I have some intense meta thoughts on the way Klaus fucks and the way he hurts himself with and without drugs but I'm not going to put them here because if I do this right? They'll come out in the fic. But general concept if you’re reading this to get an idea of what’s in the fic, I think he uses physical pain during sex as a replacement for affection he was shown repeatedly he cannot ask for as he grew into adulthood and as a method of distraction that result in rough and upsetting oral sex. *crosses fingers*
>   * The Apollo 11 mission didn't land on the moon until July 11 of 1969. Klaus is in '68. No one has made it to the moon yet, the space race with Russia is still on and Apollo astronauts are more famous than musicians, politicians, and movie stars combined. Seriously, the shit they got away with... there's a reason everyone wanted to be an astronaut for awhile there.
>   * Legally speaking, Vietnam doesn't appear to have ever had any laws on the books criminalizing homosexuality and a commenter who has been reports not hearing about anyone ever being arrested. Chances are no one would have ever arrested them for making out on the street even if a cop walked by them but as my commenter pointed out homosexuality isn’t accepted by some people even now so logically there’s no way Davd would have been comfortable Dave with public displays because at best there’s no way for him to know that fact because my thoughts are as an American GI he wouldn't have anywhere to ask about the criminality of homosexuality in Vietnam without making himself vulnerable. 
>   * In 1968 there’s no way for Dave to do research on local law and life I can think of without risking drawing at least a little attention to himself to find that out. I mean, he could go to a library but besides the one on base or the embassy? Maybe one in a English speaking mission but if they are religious they’d ask questions about homosexuality. And it was definitely a crime in a lot of states (and pretty life ruining in the other English speaking countries even after decriminalization)and in other local places the language barrier would have been a problem with getting information alone. The tech in the 60s would have been books, phones, microfiche and maybe faxing but honestly it depends on how much they have access to? I dont even know what the TUA universe has and didn't lose because oh man [do I have thoughts on how much MORE limited technology is in TUA's universe than it ever was in ours.](http://dancinbutterfly.tumblr.com/post/183115452350/no-joke-yall-watch-it-again-no-one-uses-a-cell)
>   * "They speak English in What?" is from Pulp Fiction. If you havent seen it...I just..Stop what you're doing and see watch it. It's a cultural zeitgeist and I am VERY strongly convinced that that elements of TUA is pulled from Pulp Fiction. But then the entire emo movement is full of Tarantino fans so IDK how it couldnt be?
>   * For the record? There's nothing wrong with having rough sex, yall. Just make sure everyone involved is ready for it. I speak from actual experience here. Do not, under any circumstances, spring self-harming sexual practices on someone who isn't expecting it okay? Most people will give you what you want if you ask nice. Don't be an asshole, let them get a safeword in there - at very least the traffic light system. Most people are just happy to get an orgasm. Trust Granny Butters. 
>   * first drafts of this did not take into account the makeup Klaus was wearing but it’s vitally important to remember he bought mascara and eyeliner before they went out drinking and even though waterproof mascara was invented in the 40s, even the most stuff today can’t hold up against tears and whatever liner he was wearing (which I’m gonna say is the same he got on th earlier errand) when the briefcase brought him back to the bus in 2019 certainly didn’t stand up to how Klaus always does his waterlines. 
>   * chapter title from Planetary(GO!) which I would argue is the most sexual MCR song and I would argue that because of the way Gerard moaned like a glorious slut when he performed it live. man the Danger Days tour were good times.
> 



	5. when both our cars collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Look, Dave has wanted this forever so they’re going to be intimate if it kills them. And it won’t. Probably...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking AnonCoward and Decoy_Ocelot saved this. If you like this story then they’re who you should be thanking. 
> 
> Also, I took a lot of the your comments under advisement as I wrote this. They’re so damn thoughtful and wonderful and give me so much to consider. If you see something in here that looks like something you mentioned in a comment? Yes, it is there because you mentioned it in a comment. I will answer them I just thought y’all might want an update over a reply. 
> 
> No betas. We die like men.

Dave's first instinct is to get under the covers and wait. He gives in to the desire for a minute because Klaus did say he was coming out and while he's seen the man lie a blue streak to their superiors and locals and various and sundry strangers, he hasn't lied to Dave yet. So he will come out. Probably. Damnit. 

Dave presses his palms into his eye sockets as he racks his brain for what to do . He's never had anyone walk away from him but then again no one's walked up to him either. All he has are vague guesses and what he'd want for himself. He's seen first hand with the fellas in his platoon that people want different things when things go south but what else does he have to work with?

Shit all and guesswork, is what. 

He knows that wouldn't want to be left alone. He'd want to know that Klaus cared about what happened to him on the other side of that door. That's all he can do.

He thinks about putting his clothes back on but Klaus's clothes are on the floor and he doesn't have anything to change into in the bathroom. It doesn't feel fair to cover up when Klaus doesn’t have the same option. Being in the army has gotten him used to being exposed, even if this is so much bigger, so much more. He tries to let this be normal as that as he leans his ear on the door but anxiety makes him shiver as much as the cool night air drifting in the open window. He can hear water running on the other side of the door and Klaus mumbling under his breath. He hears “stupid” and “enough” and “don’t” and “shut up” before he knocks. 

“Klaus?”

“Give me a second.”

He sounds okay. That helps Dave relax even if it doesn't relieve all his worries. “Take your time. I was just wondering if you were okay?”

"Yeah fine." There's a pause when there's no more mumbling, just a bit of jostling from the small bit of luggage they'd moved into the bathroom before heading out for the evening before Klaus speaks again. He sounds confused and a little frustrated this time." Hey, where’re your condoms?”

Dave's pulse speeds up at the question even though his answer is going to disappoint. What does Klaus even need condoms for? It's too much to try and consider honestly. “I don’t have any, just the one I use to keep all the jungle muck out of the rifle barrel.”

“Seriously? What happened to being prepared? For fucks sake, they’re just condoms, Dave. How much could a pack cost nowadays, five dollars?”

Dave choke on air. Good God, what the hell did Klaus think rubbers were made out of, spun silk? He could buy a new shirt out of the Sears and Robuck catalog for that much, including shipping. Maybe the conversion from dollars to dong has thrown him off or maybe his family had him just that sheltered. That wouldn't surprise him, actually, with all he's heard so far. "Klaus, have you ever even been in a drug store before today?"

"Are you kidding? I practically lived in them. I used to smurf allergy medication for this guy before they started keeping the good stuff behind the counter. My allowance was bullshit but twenty bucks in Allegra D could get me so much coke before the fucking tweakers ruined it for the rest of us trying to catch a buzz and pharmacists turned into the Gestapo asking for papers over every box." 

How rich was his family that twenty dollars seemed like bullshit? And why is he starting to sound sad again now, about this of all things? Klaus baffles him at the best of times with every possible piece of information available. From this side of the bathroom door, Dave can only guess at what is happening and he can give Klaus absolutely nothing. It's more for himself than Klaus that he asks this time.

"How you're doing in there?"

Klaus opens at the door to that and he is looking better. His face is clean of tears and his hair is wet and pushed back. His smile is plastered back in place but now Dave can see the cracks in the mounting where it hangs on his face even if the sentiment is real as bone and dirt. 

“I'm fantastic. Ready to rock and roll.”

He reaches out for his waist and Dave catches his hand. He’s always wanted to hold a boy’s hand, really hold it like the Beatles sang about. The Hello on his right hand disappears into expanse of his left and he laces their fingers together. “Let’s get in bed first.”

“Dirty boy,” Klaus purrs using their joined hands to lead the way. 

Dave doesn’t contradict him. When they get to the bed though, he tightens his grip and climbs beneath the covers. He doesn’t release Klaus hand until takes the hint and joins him between the sheets and even then only when he tugs his hand back. 

“You getting shy on me, Private?”

“A little,” Dave admits. That truth doesn’t cost him anything compared to the heart of the matter. “I want to slow down a little.”

“Slow’s fucking boring.”

That stings some he can admit. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“Slow is death.”

Dave can’t help but stare. “Says who?”

“I don’t know, lived experience,” Klaus snaps, the harshness and volume of his words belying rolling eyes and a dismissive shrug.

Dave wants to cry rivers and commit murders for him. What he does instead his catch his dear face in both hands and hold him still so he can press their foreheads together. “We’re still alive right now,” he offers with a gentle kiss because he doesn’t ever forget what almost dying feels like and he wants Klaus have a piece of his relief if all he can see from where his vantage point are hauntings of one form or another. 

Klaus squirms against the grip, hands flailing for a moment before landing clammy and burning on his shoulders but he doesn’t pull away. He breathes heavy and hot against his lips. “Are we?”

“Yeah.”

Klaus lets out a breathless chuckle and his fingers flex on his shoulders. “You sure?”

Dave takes a risk and let’s go of his face to wrap his arms around Klaus waist so his hands meet on his back between his shoulder blades. He pulls and lifts until Klaus is on top of him, in his lap and pressed close from thighs to clavicle. Like this, their chests and stomachs move against each other every time either of them breathes. 

“I’m sure now. I feel you.” He takes a deep inhalation and let’s it out slow, then another, then a fourth before he asks,“Can you feel me?”

“Yes. Christ I can.” He presses closer, the sides of their noses rubbing against each other as he turns his forehead from side to side. He goes limp in Dave’s arms like a 115 pound rag doll with a heavy sigh of “There you are." Dave can feel it everywhere like champagne bubbles under his skim as Klaus giggles, like he's almost giddy at what he's suddenly discovered. "Oh my god, Dave.”

Oh. Oh Jesus. His lungs and heart feel powerless at the sound of his name, pouring off Klaus’ tongue like a benediction and revelation, like maybe the ruination of emotion is mutual. Oh, God, please, he wants it to be. 

Klaus feels so good in his arms, his deep breath moving against his back under his hands as he drops his head into the crook of his neck. Dave wants to hold him there, pet his soft skin, card through his curls, and protect him until the day he dies. It’s only been a month and he probably shouldn’t be thinking that way but he is. 

He turns his head to press his mouth against Klaus’ temple. He tastes like clean skin, just Klaus, and warmth. “Yeah. There you are.”

He should be expecting it when Klaus kisses him but he isn’t. It feels like a right hook when all it is really just Klaus turning his head to the left and up to catch his mouth. 

Klaus’ tongue slips between his lips when he gasp in a sneaky move Dave wouldn’t have imagined trying because he think in subterfuge. He accepts the kiss as the gift it is but he doesn’t let himself be baited to hurry. Not again. Klaus bites his lip in frustration and whines but doesn’t stop kissing him when he only softens his mouth and touch. He accepts deeper kisses with a happy sigh and shifts to accommodate when Klaus wraps his arms around his neck and his legs around his hips but he refuses to be rushed, not when they have just found this equilibrium. 

Hell, Dave is selfish. Since he was a teenager he’s wanted imagined a boy he could spend time just kissing, the way his classmates had gone necking with girls after football games or on summer afternoons by the river outside town. If he’s brutally honest what he’s really wanted was to have and be a boyfriend even if he knew it was improbable. Sitting with Klaus like this, in an the fallout from earthquake of emotion where secondary shockwaves of feeling could stoke at any moment, tangled up and just kissing, feels like Dave is getting a piece of what he was denied from this impossible man. 

That thought is almost too much and he has to stop to catch his breath. He’s a little smugly pleases to find Klaus is panting to. He relinquishes his hold on the back of Klaus head so he can cup his cheek again and give into a desire he’s had for weeks to run his thumb over that full lower lip. It slides smoothly back and forth over the soft blood-bright bloom of his mouth, slick from their kissing. 

He moves them to his chin and brush’s across the hair of his beard. It’s soft to be a different kind of soft from his mouth and tickles his thumb. He always wondered. . 

The things he’s always wanted to do and ask and feel but hasn’t been able to back in the City but that Klaus gives without knowing what he’s doing are so much. Dave feels like his chest is too small for his heart. “Thank you.”

Klaus blinks at him. “Excuse me?”

Dave flounders for the right words but before he can even find wrong ones Klaus’ hand comes between them to skim down his cheek. He leans back and Dave realize, to his horror, that Klaus is studying the tears he wiped away because oh, god, he’s crying. It doesn't feel like it. It's not sad or upset or anything like that but his eyes are leaking anyway. He thinks maybe he understands why Klaus was so confused with him earlier a little better now.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you and I’m sorry?” Klaus echoes, his face a picture of bafflement “Dave, what is going on cuz of the two of us, I promise I’m definitely the one who fucked up here. This is fine. Good even. The stuff before was good for me too you just didn’t seem to be feeling it but this new cowgirl thing seems to this working right? It’s working for me so far so- Oh shit, no, don’t cry. Fuck. Ben, why are you never around when I actually need you? What the fuck do I do?”

Dave starts laughs but it takes a horrible turn and he feels like he’s sprung a leak. It’s awful, made worse by the way Klaus’ hands flutter over his skin looking for a way to soothe him like nervous birds looking for a place to land. He would lean into it if there were a chance but no single touch is long enough to be that grounding. 

“I’m fine.” The words are carried out on a hiccuping sob that mutates into a laugh as he tries to strangle the tears out of the sound. God he’s a wretched liar. 

“Yeah, no. You’re still crying. Shit, Dave what did I do?”

Dave shakes his head, lacking the words and feeling so stupid. 

“Please. I’m sorry. “

“No. Don’t. I’m just-“ He tries to laugh but an ugly noise comes out that feels like the distillation of lost time ripping out of his throat instead. He’s choking out the poisoned diamonds of potential he’s been forced to swallow every day before Klaus found his way into his arms. “This wasn’t going to happen to me.”

“Who hasn’t had a nervous breakdown?”Klaus asks, clearly not understanding but it feels good when his fingers slide into his hair anyway. “I had like eight before I hit puberty and people were only trying to kill me semi-regularly back then. You’ve been under that kind of stain for how long? This is probably a good sign. Better than, I don’t know, making a necklace of human tongues or something.” 

His fingernails skate across Dave’s scalp quick and steady and soothing as he speaks. It doesn’t help because it’s another example of the sort of thing Dave had dreamt of but never really expected to experience, such simple unselfish affection from a man who wants and cares about him who he feels the same for. To find it that a war zone was a cruel cosmic joke but Klaus laughs so easily. Maybe he’s the only one who can understand that. 

He tips his head back into Klaus’ hands which makes him pause for a heartbeat but he gets the message and for the first time tonight it feels like Klaus might understand a little. But only a little. 

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah you said that but-“

“I’ve just been wanting this to feel like my whole life.” He sighs and straightens his head so he can meet Klaus’ eyes, huge and a little panicked. “I just wasn’t prepared for it to be so much, for you to be so much.”

Klaus goes whiter than the sheets around them. “Oh god, your not a-“

“No! No. I’ve just never had the chance to be--” _Say it_ , he berated himself. _You’re in love with him. You have been for who knows long but when he looked and invited you into his fairytale you knew. Say it you coward._ “Close. With someone. Not someone special like you.” He lets go of Klaus with one hand so he can wipe at his face where the tears are starting to feel awful on his skin. He does laugh now but it is definitely bitter. “Just have to go around the world to a war zone to find someone to pass time with. Funny huh?”

Klaus shrugs. “I don’t know doesn’t sound that far to me.”

“No?”

“You could go around the world plus fifty years to meet someone worth slowing down for.”

“That’s pretty far.” Dave agrees with a laugh but Klaus isn’t laugh. And Dave knows what he saw the night Klaus arrived in camp but that’s something out of Star Trek. It can’t be. Can it? So many things would make sense if it were true. From the way he sounds and looks and holds himself and thinks right down to the he doesn't understand the value of a damn dollar, it would all make sense. 

Klaus starts to squirm in his arms and Dave holds on. “Wait.”

“This is a mistake. All of this is. I shouldn’t be here.”

His very presence in Dave’s arms seem to shrink as he speaks, poised to dart away if Dave so much as breathes wrong. 

After weeping like a girl though, Dave’s come far to be precious about flaying himself further. He’s already mostly skinless. 

“But you are. I don’t know what you think you did or where you think you should be and I don’t care. You’re here with me now so, Klaus, God, please, stay.”

That Klaus freezes and seems to shift his tracks like a record changing in a jukebox He stares like Dave is some strange unknown creature, one of Gene Roddenberry’s creations maybe and asks “What’d you just say?”

Oh. Okay. That’s easy. “Stay. Stay with me, Klaus.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Fucking how dare you?” Klaus demands, sounding actually angry. 

Dave flounders to find a response to make things better but before he can find thought let alone breath for words, Klaus pushes up on his knees to kiss him from above, swooping in and taking his mouth captive. Klaus doesn’t play around with this kiss beating him into submission with his sucking lips and hungry tongue. Dave moan’s pours from his lungs into Klaus like it was always meant to live there. 

They overbalance backwards and Dave’s back hits the bed with a thud. Klaus kisses him like his digging in, looking for something. Dave opens his lips for his seeking tongue even as he rolls them over so he can start his own quest to learn what makes Klaus long, skinny body twitch and writhe and buck and flex and harden and go pliant. 

Damnit. He doesn’t have enough hands to touch everything he wants to at once. He can’t kiss Klaus and map every inch of his skin with his mouth at the same time. He can’t hold his weight up and grind him into the bed so hard the meld into one melted catastrophe of joined flesh simultaneously. There just is not enough of him to worship Klaus’ body the way he wants. It’s actually a pretty great problem to have. 

Klaus hooks his ankles around his waist and wow, okay, Dave really likes that. Jeez. With Klaus’s legs hiked up like that, his knees squeezing his sides, change everything because it’s like he’s laid himself open like a butterfly mounted on velvet. 

Dave feels too big and somehow awkward. He wasn’t lying when he told Klaus he wasn’t a virgin. He’s fucked and been fucked a few times before but none of those times felt as fragile as this and his cock, hard and heavy and starting to drip precum, feels almost too blunt for this as it fits into a sweet spot where he fits under his balls and slides back into the crease between firm buttocks. 

For a second he doesn’t even breathe. Klaus is a firecracker but he’s iced over with sudden nerves and overwhelming need to not screw this up. 

Then gravity takes care of the problem when his hips slips just so forward into the space their bodies have created and then he falls into Klaus’s sigh. God yeah. That’s. That’s something else. For how hard everything else has been, this is easy. 

Klaus is hard against his stomach, leaking into his chest hair, dragging them up with each writhing shift. He pushes up into the contact with every roll, like the friction is enough so long as his hands are free to wander over Dave’s back and chest thorough sweaty curls to toy with his stiffening nipples on the way down to his own cock to pull on himself between their bellies for a few strokes before starting over. 

Dave wonders what that must feel like on his cock. There’s not a lot of hair on Klaus except for his beard and mustache but Dave really likes that he likes how it makes his fae features more masculine. Whatever he’s doing right now is smooth and hot but not quite like fucking, less immediate and not as tight but any stretch but still slick. It’s more that it should be, Dave realizes as Klaus smirks up at him and grinds his ass back into the contact because oh Jesus, he’s pretty sure Klaus got himself ready to fuck in the bathroom with something and it’s leaked out to ease the way for his cock to ride the valley ofs his ass and for Klaus to squirm back against him in invitation. 

Shit. 

Dave tries not to picture Klaus digging through his shaving kit for probably vaseline and shoving his fingers up his ass as he stood on the other side of the door, listening. He fails and groans, dropping his head into Klaus neck. 

He busies himself worshipping along Klaus jaw as he tries to collect his composure, paying attention especially to the beard line. It makes Klaus laugh and his ass cheeks clench in response. The pressure on his cock has him seeing colored spots in front of his eyes like he’s been staring into the sun. 

“You don’t play fair.”

“Course not, baby. How can you when everyone knows the house always wins.” Klaus says and he sounds almost proud. 

Dave lifts up and finds Klaus smiling but it’s wrong somehow. He isn’t lying and he isn’t upset and he’s turned on and he seems like he’s having a good but it’s still wrong. It’s wrong like the blowjob was wrong. And maybe that’s it, he feels like he has to be something else than himself to get through. 

“You don’t have to play games with me. You already won.”

Klaus might have rolled his eyes earlier tonight. Now he reaches up for the back of his neck and squeezes. “What do I win?”

“Me” he says hoping that his voice and eyes show Klaus that his heart is a hundred times as naked as his body. ”You won me.”

“Terms and conditions?”

“I... There aren’t any. Monty Hall’s not here, sweetheart. You don’t find some special combination or worry about if there’s a zonk behind Door Number 1. You’re free and clear unless you don’t want me and then, I don’t know. ” 

But then he does and the idea hurts like Dave imagines a gunshot must hurt but he has to put it out there. He has realized he didn’t make it clear enough before and that may be part of the problem. 

“I guess then behind Door Number 2 is that we don’t have to do this. But this isn't an either/or game where I'm going to stop caring and wanting to be around you because changed your mind about me. I’ll be your friend if you don’t want me like I want you." 

“Are you nuts?” Klaus holds on tighter, his fingernails dig in and his strong calves are a band around his waist that Dave is happy to be confined by. “I want you so much I’m still in 1968. I’m only here for you, Dave. Everything is terrible here, but the company and like one decent restaurant I can’t ever go back to now, I don’t know if you noticed.”

He shifts so his elbows are by Klaus’ ears and he can reach his hair and temples, eyebrows and down the line if his nose. It’s awkward to pet him like this but it feels right when that looseness returns just a little. Stop,” He pleads as the tension bleeds away enough for his eyes to drift shut. “I don’t know what you’re trying to beat or win or prove but just stop trying to do it and let me make love to you Klaus. Please?” 

Klaus nods.

“Okay. Okay. Thank you. Trust me.”

“I’ll try.” Klaus says. It sounds more like a confession than any sort of agreement. 

Dave beams at Klaus even though his eyes are still closed. Or maybe because they’re still closed that little trust already granted. “Good enough for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes 
>   * Fun fact! Condoms currently cost ~$12 dollars for a 3-5 pack depending on brand. Klaus really is trying to adjust for inflation he just doesnt understand how much inflation we've had.
>   * We've had a lot of fucking inflation. Sears&Robuck was a catalog before it was a store and in the [1968 catalog, a men's long sleeve button down shirt went for $3.99](http://www.wishbookweb.com/FB/1968_Sears_Wishbook/files/assets/basic-html/page-110.html). FROM A DEPARTMENT STORE. $5 now could get you about $40 bucks today so think like...a Ralph Lauren shirt on sale at 30% off. RIGHT? WOULDNT YOU BE DISTRESSED BUT THIS FUNDAMENTAL MISUNDERSTANDING OF MONEY? Yeah. Exactly.
>   * But why doesnt he have condoms? Dave's a gay man in the 60s who isnt sexually active. Even if he were, why would he? Condoms were most commonly used for family planning, with women. So Dave has no reason to have them. One of the many reasons(aside from the GOP Gov't and I'm not going into that cuz this is not that story) the AIDS epidemic affected gay men in the US and Canada(stressing that - it was different globally) more intensely than other groups initially was the often unprotected sexual practices prior to the safe sex movement. That's not an ethical judgment, just an explanation 
>   * There's [documented evidence that soldiers in Vietnam used condoms to protect their guns from mud, leaves, and all the little particles that would keep it from firing. Like the Russians using a pencil over a space pen, sometimes simple is best.](https://warisboring.com/the-combat-history-of-the-condom/)
>   * Smurfing - when many people make small purchases of over the counter drugs with psuedoephedrine in them for the makers of crystal meth so that they themselves would not be busted for large purchases. It's why you have to show ID to buy fucking Zyrtec in the US. Thanks DEA and Congress. That'll fix the meth problem in America. (Arrested Development Narrator: It did not fix the meth problem in America.)
>   * The necklace of tongues is a reference to The Things They Carried, specifically the Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong. Toldja Marianne's influence would pop up somehow. 
>   * So we're all familiar with the expression "Terms and Conditions " from Terms of Service which is very much an internet thing. Now, we know theres is no internet in TUA universe but I left it in place because, as a kid, also pre-internet, when TV shows and radio stations would have contests at the end of it the sweepstakes description was a disclaimer and it would end with "Terms and Conditions May Apply." So. I'm using it in that sense, the disclaimer and understanding that **hey, you can play but the rules may fuck you** sense rather than digital era energy it evokes. 
>   * [Monty Hall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQpbsD5IueA) was the host of a show called Let’s Make Deal which Dave is not exactly describing correctly. If you got to the [Big Deal of the Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5QYTrDReTo) you're going to walk away with something pretty good, which is why I'm actually comfortable using this analogy - Door Number 1 Dave as a Boyfriend Door Number 2 Dave as a Friend and Door Number 3 would be going back to The Present but Dave doesnt really know that. Anyway the scenario did give rise to the infamous Monty Hall 3 Door Problem probability math problem which is [used as a metaphor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxyIQzLeUc) to this very day.
>   * If you suspect a line or reference in this story is a call-forward to something in the show, it's almost definitely a call-forward the show.
>   * yall i realized i hit publish w/o mentioning Star Trek or Gene Roddenberry cuz I assumed as a bunch of fucking superhero nerds we all knew this shit but shame on me. Star Trek: one of the most important scifi works of all time -1)Frankenstein 2)Star Trek. Women in science&leadership esp black women. A multiracial multinational crew w/Russians as allies in the Cold War. Empathy>force. MLK personally asked Nichelle Nichols to stay on the show so I CANT EXPRESS TO YOU how important Star Trek was. Personal computers, cell Phones, sliding doors, microwaves ovens, WOMEN IN THE WORK PLACE, THE FIRST INTERRACIAL KISS ON TV all inspired or based on ST:TOS. Gene Roddenberry was flawed af but the show preached a philosophy of hope compassion and unity with individual rights. Fucking Star Trek came out in 1966 and ran until 1969 and I choose to believe Dave would have been a fan and that helps him understand Klaus. 
>   * chapter title is from helena because OF COURSE IT IS
> 



	6. i held you close as we both shook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are done finally fucking around and so help him, Dave is going to make love to Klaus, no matter how hard Klaus tries to get in his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anoncoward made sure this went where it needed to, weechlo for the magic ingredient, the TUA discord for all the magical things you do, and oh my god, you commenters without whom, I wouldn't have been able to figure out what was needed or where this was going. If you see something in here that you brought up? It's definitely there because you brought it up. Thank you so much.
> 
> The tags have changed. We earn every ounce of our Explicit rating here kiddos. Lets go. 
> 
> NO BETAS WE DIE LIKE MEN(meaning I will be going back and fixing things obsessively forever).

Sitting naked atop a lover's thighs and towering over them looks empowering in pornography. When he's had other men lean over him like this being in the reverse position has made him feel taken. But right now, as he runs his hands up and down over the wide open swaths of skin on Klaus chest, his arms, his neck, his, belly, down his legs, anywhere he can reach, and tries exploring this new country by touch, Dave feels pretty fucking exposed himself. 

"Tell me if I do something you don't like?"

Klaus tucks an arm under his head and looks at him, droll disbelief hiding the show of vulnerability from a few minutes earlier. His elegant brows arch seemingly in dismay at the very concept. "What could you do?"

Dave shrugs. He has no idea but tonight has been gone from to ambush to fireworks show to car wreck to rollercoaster and he just wants some kind of cue here. "You said you'd try and trust me?" Klaus nods."So promise if you really don't like something I do, you'll tell me. But actually tell me, not, I don't know, just take the deal."

"More like you don't want me to try and buy it back for a better bet. This metaphor's getting a little thin."

"I'm not a poet. If I was, I'd know what to say around you."

"You're doing better than anyone else ever has."

Dave wants to do the best. He wants to do so good that Klaus never wants to listen to anyone else again but all he ends up doing is absent rubbing. Something usually works for him and maybe he's needed more help than the other guys seemed to manage so effortlessly, but asking has also got him a reputation for getting what’s needed, so he sticks to that now. "So you like it?"

"Shit, when you talk to me?" Dave meant about how he was being touched but anything that makes Klaus feels good is a win. 

“Yes.”

"I guess. You talk to me, not at me, or about me. Well, okay, you talk about me sometimes but you always mean for me to hear it and you mean for me to answer or if not then it's because you're being nice about things and that's… Dave. Fuck. I don't know."

"Does it help?"

"Hm?"

"When I talk?"

Klaus shrugs. "It doesn't hurt. I'm pretty easy for your voice." He smiles and holds out his hand. "I mean, you had me at hello."

"Me too."

That has Klaus laughing again at another one of his jokes with himself, hand dropping over his face to smother the sound. From the future, Dave realizes. He doesn’t know what the context could be or how that could possibly have anything to do with anything but he knows he wants to feel him in this moment even if he’s not in on the joke. 

He catches Klaus’ right hand and pulls it away from where it covers his mouth so he can see his smile and uncurling the fingers until they’re splayed open. He traces each letter with his tongue and by the time he gets to the first L Klaus has stopped laughing. 

When Dave finishes curling the tip of his tongue around the O, he looks up the bed. With Klaus staring back at him with dark lust blown eyes half-stunned and all hungry, Dave feels beautiful. Whatever he might have had to say in any frames of a grand plan evaporate and all that remains is the word his tongue learned licking its way across Klaus palm. “Hello,” comes out breathless and happy into the hot, wet skin. 

“Hi.”

“You taste good.”

“Yeah?”

Klaus is so much better at taking than he is so it would figure he likes to hear it. Dave nods and kisses his way down his palm over his wrist to suck on his pulse. He considers bruising. He pulls his mouth off a breath instead to say the crazy shit that drifts through his head when his lips touche that thin fluttering skin. “It’s like I can taste your heartbeat under my tongue. You’re so alive.”

“Fuck,” Klaus groans, “Seriously who are you?”

“I’m-“

Klaus sits up and cups his cheek with GOODBYE. “No, I know who you are. I just don’t get how you can look at me and see-“

“A fucking miracle?”

“Dave-“

“I’m probably going to die here. We’re all probably gonna die here, including you if you don’t go back to where, when you zapped in from. Only I was going to die without being touched like this.” He covers Klaus’ left hand with his right before turning into it. “Now there’s you.”

He kisses Klaus. Short kisses that grow longer and deeper until they’re not kissing so much as breathing into each other’s mouths but takes a long few moments to win Klaus over. Dave doesn’t let up. He’s tired of listening to the horrible things Klaus has to say about himself. He’s seen some things, can guess some others and doesn’t know where the rest of it is coming from. He does know that he wants to make love to him and he can’t do that if he keeps fighting him. 

Dave wants… a lot. He wants Klaus’ cock in his mouth and he wants to fuck him and he wants to be fucked by him but really he just wants to see his face when he comes. He’s not sure what he needs to do to make that happen. If he goes too fast Klaus will put that edge back on but too slow and his brain will switch into overdrive. Damnit. 

There’s really nothing to do but just do it. It’s not what he’d really like but he figures they can always try something else if this doesn’t work. They already have. He waits until Klaus is loose again, though for who knows for how long, and carefully de-escalating the kiss.

Dave pauses for an instant before he thinks about how much better Klaus does in camp when he has a task to do and almost hates himself for the idea that he gets. It feels filthy, like something with this much heart in it shouldn’t be so crass but Klaus promised to tell him if he did anything he didn’t like. So Dave takes a fortifying breath and presses two fingers gently against Klaus’ lips. He probably shouldn’t be shocked at how fast and hard he pulls them into his mouth, sucking them eagerly, moaning around them as he caresses them with his tongue. 

Dave... is not surprised but he wasn’t expecting that. It’s like the blowjob, vulgar and desperate, but intimate nonetheless. Klaus has to know he can’t get off on this. He does. Yet the careful way he cradles Dave’s hand and wrist so he can get the angle he wants makes this different too, makes this as much for him as Dave and for that alone Dave likes it, is happier to indulge in a way he wasn’t before. 

He lets Klaus keep his hand as awkward as that makes crawling down to get face to face with his cock. It’s worth it. Klaus is hard and waiting for him and when he licks HELL up the skin of his shaft and circles the O around the weeping head of a few dozen more times than maybe proper penmanship required, Klaus digs his teeth into Dave’s fingers to muffle his scream. He opened his mouth to shout when he took his cock in fully before sealing his lips around Dave’s fingers again as his free hand buried itself in his hair.

He braces his free arm across Klaus's stomach to steady himself. The skin of his belly is distractingly soft under his forearm and once he’s got a good enough hold to keep him from bucking too hard and choking him to death, Dave gives him a gentle pat of encouragement on the hip and just lets him go. Honestly it’s something he’s always imagined doing, letting a guy just fuck his mouth, but he’s never liked anyone enough to try it. What if he had to ask them to slow down or stop because he couldn’t take it or worse, really didn’t like it? That was too risky with a stranger who could get pissed and hit him or worse, rat him out. Klaus is safe to try it out with. He didn’t care when he cried and wants to be here and he thinks he’s the lucky one because Dave asked him to stay. If Dave has to backtrack, Klaus will still want him after. 

And Dave has sucked enough dick in his life to have some idea of what he’s doing. He can’t take a guy all the way down his throat or anything but he knows enough to cover his teeth and relax his jaw so that he can make room for Klaus'cock to move and suck at the same time. Klaus holds him captive by the fist clenched in the roots of his hair so he can get a rhythm going. Dave is his happy prisoner as his cock rides over his tongue again and again. The whole set up is a little uncomfortable and awkward but just enough to keep him grounded in the here and now despite the sweaty writhing push/pull/tug/thrust hypnosis of having his mouth well and truly fucked as Klaus takes his pleasure how he wants it. 

Klaus tastes salty and bitter and a little sour and completely like himself as he whimpers around the fingers in his own mouth. Dave sucks him in and wants more, more, all of him. His finger's dig into Klaus' hip and Klaus shoves unexpectedly deep in response. His throat works more than he thought it could, greedy like Klaus always make him and then his gorgeous miracle of a man is coming with a scream choked off by the fingers he's sucking, flooding into Dave's mouth hot and choking and too much. Klaus is the definition of too much but Dave wants all of him.

He tries to take everything as he looks up and is gifted with the sight of the orgasm washing over Klaus' features, his face going slack even as spasms of bliss shake him down to his toes. His expression is transported, somewhere outside this room where there's just pleasure. Dave’s caught up in watching it, the only thing he wanted, so he doesn't really manage to swallow. He drools a mix of saliva and semen that he can't contain down his chin, messy like he's never been in his life. The frothy white slobber dripping down the shaft of Klaus's softening cock as he pulls off is the kind of sight Dave couldn't even have dreamt up to feel hot with embarrassment over but fuck, is he on fire now that it's happening. He's never been filthy like that during sex in his life but he's never wanted anyone like he wants Klaus. 

"Sorry, I-" he tries but he's still got come in his mouth. The impulse to spit, to wipe his mouth, his chin, to grab a corner of the sheet and clean all of this up rising with the color in his face so fast he's almost dizzy.

"Oh my god, get up here."

Hand still in his hair, Klaus pulls and Dave doesn’t have much of a choice. He falls back into the space between Klaus' legs, and Klaus kisses him, licking his own come out of Dave's mouth which is absolutely disgusting. Dave tries to jerk back but Klaus doesn't let him, licking the backs of his teeth and sucking tongue with purpose and only breaking once he's pulled the mess of himself into his own mouth. He looks absolutely smug which is kind of crazy and kind of gross because Dave did all the work and also, ugh, he was going to spit that. 

Klaus swallows, a gulp so loud it's obscene, then grins at him. 

Dave gapes at him. "What the hell was that?"

"A snowball's chance in hell," he says and then giggles. Dave has no idea what he's laughing at but he starts laughing too. It's easy to laugh with Klaus. He's made of sequins and stardust and paint, a beautiful clown always in on the joke. Dave's in too though, when he's with him. 

"I don't get it," he manages around gasps.

"Snowballing?" Dave nods. Klaus pushes back his own bangs off his forehead then reaches up to do the same for Dave so that he can see clearly as Klaus grins up at him, fond and amused but not withholding. He looks relaxed like Dave has never seen, not even drunk. This is post-coital Klaus, lanky limbs silly putty and eyes unguarded. "I'll tell you later. Just fuck me now, okay?"

"I'm good." And he really is. He just wanted to get Klaus like this, comfortable and saited. He's been a spring winding tighter and tighter since they met and now he's come free. But he's not done, Dave doesn't know why he expected him to be satisfied. This is Klaus after all. 

"I want you to. Come on. Who knows when we'll have a chance to do this in a bed again." Then with the flexibility of a contortionist, Klaus tucks his legs up and puts his damn knees on his shoulders. "Please." 

God, Dave can feel his calves on his back. It's crazy. How can any man say no to that? He's not strong enough and Klaus did get himself ready. It'd be rude not to, right?

"Let me." Dave says, bracing himself with one hand and guiding himself in carefully with the other because he doesn't want this pleasure-loose Klaus to go away. He's still slippery with Vaseline and when Dave holds his cock against Klaus' with careful pressure, he finds his body is still pliant, relaxed from the orgasm and easy. It's never been this easy before. He's no brute but he's never slid inside a man who gives way like Klaus opens for him, with all the lax softness of a man already fucked out and ready to rest. God, Dave is never going to be the same after this.

When he's in all the way, their bodies pressed flush together Klaus has a look of something like surprise on his face. Dave gave an experimental thrust and Klaus' head falls back and low sighed "Fuck," leaks out like air from a balloon in response.

Dave drops on his arm so that he can pet his neck with his other hand, long and exposed as he starts to move with care and purpose. "Yeah. Sweetheart, that's it. You feel so good."

"I- Jesus. Oh. Oh, yeah, that's you. Your skin." His dark eyes are huge, staring up at the ceiling. Then another one of those thin laughs comes out through clenched teeth and his beard makes them look bright in the dark. "Right. No condom. Wild. Fuck, oh God, fuck."

"You're okay?"

"Never, uh, oh shit, never had anyone in me like this before. It's, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's different. Dave?"

"Yeah?"

Klaus pushes himself up on his palms and into his face so their noses bump together. "Fuck me."

Dave dips his head to nuzzle against the fuzz of his goatee. He can feel Klaus hard between them again and he knows he's on to something good but he doesn't want to fuck Klaus. He wants to stay just like this and make love to him. He shakes his head against Klaus' jaw where he can feel it then says against his lips. "I'm good."

"No. No, no, no, you need to fuck me. Fuck me hard. " He rocks back into the thrust as best he can with so little leverage. "C'mon. Fucking do it. I need it."

That sounds like the goading from earlier and they've come so far from that. He doesn't want to go back. Still. He has to check. "Do you not like this?" It's the one thing he asked Klaus to tell him. 

Klaus frowns. "That's not it."

"Then I'll keep going like this, okay?" Klaus sucks his lower lip in between his teeth, panic in his eyes but he does nod. 

Dave beams at him and Klaus groans and drops his head back to the pillow and throws his arm across his eyes. He's ready to take what Dave is giving him now, dropping his legs off Dave's shoulders and into the crooks of his elbows to take each thrust that is still so slow. The set of his mouth seems annoyed but he's also got a blush that's working up his face from his neck and chest and every time Dave bottoms out, Klaus lets out a little "ughn" noise like a mix between a grunt and a sigh that sounds pushed out of his diaphragm.

"Yeah," Dave says and god, what must he sound like, so pleased and proud and satisfied to have what he wants. He can't imagine. "Thank you sweetheart. I like it like this."

"You're killing me, you prick."

"You're perfect," he says and kisses Klaus. He kisses him and rides this slow wave of pleasure that he could be happy to roll through for a thousand years. Klaus' eyes get bigger and bigger as he fucks him smooth and steadily as his cock beats a steady tattoo inside his hole, regular as a heartbeat and just as devoted. He shifts a few times, to get his knees underneath him, to redistribute Klaus's weight, to move his right arm out from under Klaus' left knee to pull the leg around his back to pull him open, to spread out him, to push in deeper, to lift up and change his angle until Klaus' back jackknifes off the bed in an impossible arch and his arms shoot up to grab at the wall and then down to claw at his shoulders.

"That. That. That. Fucking that's it." His left heel digs into Dave's lower back and his right foot points and flexes, his toes spreading in the corner of his eye at the edge of his still willingly trapped leg stretching up towards the ceiling. "Oh my god, Dave, yeah. Please, that is it, that, I… I don't- I can't- Dave, I want--"

Dave presses their bodies tight together, keeping that terrible slow pace but chasing that angle that's turned Klaus into a vicious jungle beast of hunger. "I want you to have it, sweetheart."

Dave loses time like he never has during sex before. The the springs of the bed creaking under them fade away and the open-mouthed panting of Klaus' breath getting shallower and more ragged are his metronome. He can see Klaus' face, kiss his soft lips, slide his cock through the soft tightness of his slick hole and feel him clench and cling as he moves. He wants to live here, shivery and sweaty but building heat in the base of his spine that will burst when he's churned Klaus' insides up enough for him to be wordless and limp again. By the time he has Klaus crying on his cock, he's dripping with so much sweat the sheets are soaking and his muscles are crying. Someone is begging and he doesn't know if it's him or Klaus but he doesn't like it. Neither of them should have to beg. Not here.

He reaches for Klaus' cock and it throws off his rhythm but he needs him to come, he wants to watch that slack bliss slide over his face from up close and it's not too hard to catch him in his fist. He can't jerk him but his palms are sweaty and he holds a channel in one fist for Klaus to fuck into and watches his features contort and relax with pleasure even as he feels his ass tighten around his cock. Klaus is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen and the most wonderful thing he's ever felt and the only reason Dave doesn't tell Klaus he loves him when he shoots off into his burning body is because he kisses him. But it's a close thing. A photo finish and a messy one at that leaves them with nothing but wet spots. 

Dave's still a liquid disaster with warm soup for bones when Klaus shimmies out from under him so he isn't ready. He had his arms full of hot, beautiful man one moment and the next they were empty and cold and it jars him out of the afterglow faster than anything except maybe shelling could have. Klaus hasn't gone far, curled on his side, his back to him, the curve of his spine an expanse of skin he wants to get to know as well as his own hands. He curls around him and feels Klaus stiffen in his arms, his breathing ragged and shallow and...wet.

"Klaus?"

Klaus clears his throat and swallows audibly before he speaks. "What's up?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine."

"I am. I'm fine."

Dave wraps his arm around his skinny body and pulls Klaus' back tight against his chest because he is not fine. He's a consummate liar, whether he means to be or not, has been lying about almost everything, almost all the time, since the moment he arrived in Vietnam. It's his armor from the war, their comrades, their COs, hell, he's put it on in bed tonight so many times Dave's lost count and more than once Dave bought into it, or almost did. If something has Klaus so shaken that he can't even sell this simple lie to himself, Dave is worried. 

He wraps a leg over Klaus' just to be closer. He kisses a spot beneath his ear he's never been a position to reach before and asks "What's wrong?"

"Oh my god, nothing." When he laughs this time, it's broken, almost hysterical. "Nothing's wrong. Nothing at all." He lets out a cackle that is also distinctly ragged.

"Klaus, sweetheart-"

"There is nothing actually wrong. Jesus, Dave, that's the fucking problem. Everything's great and I feel like I don't know… something in my chest is breaking open." His hand comes up to dig fingernails into the meat of his arm where it covers Klaus' breastbone. "Like I'm bleeding from the chest but I know what that's like and I'm not. I'm not doing that so what's fucking wrong with me?" He tips his head back and there's tears on his face. "Dave, what's fucking wrong with me?"

Oh. Well. He cried like a punk earlier over that kind of too much, too big, too _good_ emotion. He can understand this at least. "You're okay, sweetheart." He kisses each cheek and knows that these tears are cleaner and safer than the ones before and it's not just because they have less makeup in them. "I think this is just your turn."

Klaus laughs and then he sobs. He sobs until he's shaking, raw and broken down, twisted in his arms so that they're face to face again. Dave wraps all his limbs around him and wishes for more arms and legs because four really doesn't feel like enough. Dave can make what little he has work though, mostly because Klaus holds on too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes 
>   * Ha! funny story! When I started this, I spent a lot of effort NOT making Dave Jewish. Like...a lot. Anyone who knows me knows I care a lot about Jewish representation and will take any excuse to right a Jewish character so I made a conscious effort not to do that here. It heavily influenced the backstory this Dave has....[And then I found out that the Sergeant doesn't say Chaz, he says Katz and Dave Katz is in fact fucking Jewish.](dancinbutterfly.tumblr.com/post/183426025960/klaus-fell-in-love-with-man-named-david-katz-and) For now I'm going to continue as planned and when this WHOLE thing is done? I will do revisions but the change mainly it will be **who** did his bashing because way Jews tended to turn roll when a child didn't fall in line - especially in the 20th century - was shunnings, which I'm going to keep. I've already made changes to the one bit in Chapter 3 where religion is mentioned but otherwise, everything is the same until I can decide how I want to change his relationship with his family.
>   * "You had me at hello" is from Jerry McGuire. It was v big in the 90s. 
>   * Do I need to explain the practice of snowballing to anyone? I I feel like it was clear but if you're still a little foggy, you can google it. "But Grandma Butters, why wouldn't Dave know that term?" Well, surprising no one, while snowballing was a gay slang term(cuz gay men invented all the fun terms cuz they had all the best sex) Dave wasn't super active in the homosexual sex scene in SF, NY or any other major US city and he didn't make it to the 70s when the term was first published in a book of slang, let alone the 90s when the movie Clerks made sure EVERYONE knew what snowballing was (37? IN A ROW?!?!). And, look, after "maybe they're here for Kenny's birthday" you can't expect me to believe Klaus wouldn't take advantage of being in a war to make a every hell joke he could. He strikes me as that kinda queer.
>   * Vaseline is a petroleum based lubricant. Petroleum based lubes have staying power and is actually pretty good for going skin to skin cuz it doesn't wear out, though its bad for use with latex and is why we tend to use water-based nowadays. That was then, this is now. If you or someone you are planning to have sex with has a penis: **do not engage in any fluid exchange without a condom** That was the 60s! We don't have their excuse!
>   * The chapter title is from I'm Not Okay by MCR because of course it is.
> 



	7. the only hope for me is you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave just wants Klaus to take him, to have him, and to keep him and to understand that he's chosen Klaus because there's really no one better for him, no matter how long it takes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I always said from the jump I'd write this story till I ran out of ideas for it. Well, that's where we are. I think I came to a fairly natural place to stop. I hope you like it. 
> 
> Thank you guys for literally everything. Yall have been a fucking blessing to write for.

They stagger together to the shower on shaky legs. The water pressure is terrible but Klaus lets him wash the all that rebelliously curly hair. The strands slip through his fingers like soft wet springs like every rain-drenched jungle fantasy Dave has had since he arrived. Klaus laughs and splutters and spits water into his face and they wash each other down with the insufficient bar of soap the hotel provided. For someone so skinny, he's soft and warm under the spray and when Klaus grabs his ass playfully with sudsy hands, Dave is the one who melts. 

"Oh fuck." He's got bones in his legs, he knows this because they've carried him all over this godforsaken country but they're not really working right now. He's sagging against Klaus who's doing a great job of holding him up and groping him at the same time as he drops his head into the convenient cradle of his shoulder. 

"Well, hello there Private," Klaus chuckles dark and rich, right into his ear. 

Dave can barely breathe out a weak, "Hi," in return.

"Quite the nice handful you've got there." And his fingers actually knead into the flesh beneath their grasp.

"Thanks." He feels like his mouth has gone dry which is crazy because every second it's hanging open and panting more water hits his tongue. "You want to do anything with it?"

"I have some ideas," he purrs and hs fingers dig into the meat of his ass in a teasing way that makes Dave's legs quiver with want and he sways into Klaus's shoulder. 

He's scrawny but strong and Dave lets him hold them both up. He sinks his teeth into the skin beneath his mouth, sucking water off until there's nothing under his tongue but hot flesh taste and Klaus laughs low and rough in his ear and he wants more. He just had him and he still wants more. He wants Klaus inside him this time. He turns his head and rests his cheek on the marks he just left hand gasps,"Please, tell me one of them is fucking me, Klaus, please."

"Uh, yeah, I mean, I was just going to get down and blow you, maybe rim you some if the hot water didn't run out, but yeah, fuck it. I can do that. Let's do that instead." 

Klaus puts him face down on the messy bed and all Dave can smell us their sweat and semen and the oily scent of petroleum jelly as Klaus’s fingers pry him open. He can feel his body shaking as he tries to let him in, tries to relax, tries to release his body into this feeling but it's difficult. He’s a clenched fist when he wants to be an open hand. Klaus made it seem so easy but then, Klaus is glittering star, bright and burning, where he’s an icy comet in orbit around him at best, a dead piece of rock falling through space at worst. 

Klaus doesn’t stop touching him just because he’s broken out in a cold sweat and is clenching his fists in the sheets. He kisses his neck and nibbles his earlobe and corkscrews his fingers inside his hole with purpose, deep and slow, until the whole world goes white and he sobs with pleasure.

“Oh, there you go. That’s it, that’s so good and you’re gonna look so pretty on my dick.”

Dave can’t catch enough breath to respond in any real way. It’s been a long time since he was fucked. Years. He can’t even remember the face of his last partner. He doesn’t want to with Klaus hollowing him out with nimble fingers twisting deep and dragging his knuckles over his insides with electric explosions. “Shit, there you go. Breathe, gorgeous. Just breathe and open up for me." There's a pause where he hears Klaus fumble around behind him and then, "Goddamnit, I'd give my fucking kingdom for some fucking KY.”

"Klaus?"

There's a kiss between his shoulder blades, then on his neck just behind his jaw. "Nothing. Just hating on Nam. You know how it is."

"Yeah," Dave agrees on a sigh. He wishes they were back stateside too, imagines for a second what this would be like in his own apartment, in his own bed, on a Saturday night when they could spend all Sunday sleeping in and listening to records, maybe order a pizza and get some real ice cream to eat off each other after. "Yeah I know."

"I'm gonna fuck you blind, Dave, you ready?"

No. He's never going to be ready but he nods and Klaus reaches around with a Vaseline slick hand to grab his chin and tug him back so that he could kiss him hard. It's breathtaking, literally, the breath is dragged from his lungs by the sucking of Klaus's mouth over his, even as his tongue traces over his teeth and his cock pushes in, taking him hostage with every scrape of friction inside him, pushing all other thought from his brain but that Klaus is fucking him.

He claws backwards with his left hand, blind and lost and seeking an anchor at the burning pleasure that pries him open and maybe the high pitched whining he hears like a fire alarm going off is him, keening at being fucked after being left empty for so long because Klaus laughs, bright and a little hysterical into their kiss, breaking off and nuzzling against his cheek as he rolls deeper. Dave is choking on the stretch of being spread open on his cock but he loves it, he does, wants it, wants it all and if he has that he still wants more. Klaus is a decadent beast that makes it easy for Dave to feel free with his gluttony and lust and he feels unashamed and out of control as he rocks back onto the cock spearing into him and pressing in so deep it makes him feel like he's being choked.

"Klaus, I- Please."

"Yeah. Dave, so hot inside, so fucking tight. Open that ass for me and let me in. " His teeth drag against this skin as his mouth snaps shut and his forehead pushes in tight against his temple and Dave will give him anything so of course of course, he gives him this. He has to drop his hold on Klaus with this left hand and let himself fall face first into the bed to brace himself against the wall and grab the meat of his ass and pulls himself open with his right but he manages. Once he does, it's enough to change Klaus' angle of entry just so and Dave screams into the mattress Klaus sets a steady pace that batters Dave's prostate dead on until his brain is beaten into mushy putty in his skull. 

Dave lose track of everything but his body as Klaus fucks him into mindless, sobbing bliss. He has to focus holding his hole exposed the way it needs to be to get the sensation just right and supporting himself against the force of Klaus' thrusts is all he can do. Anything else is just too much work to maintain. There's no room for anything else. The world narrows to a flurry white sheets and beige-gold skin and warm hands and the battering current of pleasure so overwhelming that he feels like he's being dragged down a river and away from himself and over a waterfall that drops him into a black abyss of bliss.

He comes back to the jarring feeling of Klaus fucking into his limp, oversensitized body fast and frantic. He's whispering something into his bare shoulder that Dave can't quite make out. It's the same thing over and over, soft and syllabant, and Dave wants to know. He wants every piece of Klaus he's given.

"What?"

"Dave," Klaus moans, slamming in harder. "Dave, baby."

"Yeah?" 

"God, Dave, I-"

"What?" His words are muffled by the fabric, turned into a stutter by the force of impact of Klaus's cock finding it's home inside him over and over but he wants to know. He needs to know. "What'd you say?"

"Said, 's never been like this before." He can feel the curls that cover Klaus's forehead brush the nape of his neck as he presses a kiss to the top of his shoulders. "No one's let me in them like this. Never. Never had anything like you."

Dave can feel his smile sprawl across his face, lazy as his limbs are feeling after that second orgasm. "Me either." He turns his head to the side so Klaus can see it if he cares to look. "'S cuz you're special. Perfect."

Klaus chokes, dropping his head to press his brow against Dave's temple and comes. It's wet and hot and Dave sighs at the messy intimacy of being filled up in this new-familiar way. Klaus breathes ragged and pained against his cheek as he slumps on top of him, arms tangling tight around his body and that's okay. Dave doesn't mind the weight. It feels good actually, real like few things in this place feel truly real. Safe. He's had to do the holding so much it's nice to be on the other side.

"Your skin," Klaus breathes, and holds him a little tighter, still inside of him, still on top of him. If there's more to that Dave doesn't know what it's meant to be because he stops there. He lets it hang unfinished. 

Dave supposes that's enough because it's the same for him, with the bristly softness of Klaus's beard and the powerful weight of his body and the strong lines of his fingers. Some things can't be explained, only observed and adored. The impulse to catalogue all those things is there and he'd give in to it now if it wouldn't risk dislodging the hold Klaus has on him. He settles letting himself be held until Klaus finally caves to his own nervous energy and pulls away. 

He lets Klaus be prissy and drag them to the other bed even though his legs feel like lead weights because they've ruined this one and as much as he loves having access to a shower whenever he wants, he doesn't want to right now. He just wants to lay here, close and quiet and warm and drift. He's freed to watch as Klaus looks over his shoulder a few times, flicks his hand at the air with a little his, and settles against him with their legs tangled together in clean sheets that don't smell like anything but soap. 

"Stay with me?" Dave asks, hoping it comes out as a request and not pathetic begging even though that's how it feels.

"You can't make me leave now," Klaus threatens, as if he'd ever want to. "You're stuck with me."

Dave snuggles into him a little closer, tangling up like kittens in a box or those otters he saw at the zoo once, all limbs and torsos on top of one another. He's wanted this forever and it's better than he dreamed it could be. He gives Klaus a pleased little squeeze with his right hand on whatever bit of him is nearest to his hand, soft and warm and his. "Good."

"Is it?" Klaus sounds genuinely surprised. 

Dave hates that this radiant man is always so shocked to be appreciated. He's going to try and fix it starting right now. He gives that warm soft skin, a hip maybe or a bit of flank he's not sure, another squeeze. "Yeah. The best. You're the best, Klaus."

Klaus snorts but doesn't argue. Dave isn't exactly thrilled with that response but he can live with it. He has plenty of time to change his mind.

(end)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: 
>   * Not a lot of notes for this last bit but the thing about Klaus's romance taking place in 1968 is that it's pre-HIV/AIDS. There's a lot of things that are very different but there's a joke I've heard quite a few Boomers tell that goes _"How much did a condom cost in the 70s?"/"I don't know we never bought them."_ It's a joke but it's also something that's very real because people didn't use condoms as often as the should have because between the arrival of The Pill and Diaphrams for women and well, the lack of a need for contraceptives with gay men, there wasnt really a need for condom use for anything but preventing STIs and besides the clap and the syph what was there? Nothing really. This is partially why the AIDS epidemic got as far as it did. 
>   * Contracting HIV is something I think Klaus as a queer person who has sex with men and as a stated intravenous drug user ("I love needles.") would be very aware of. That's why I make a point of addressing the lack of condom use so many times in this story even though we only see it through Daves, admittedly confused and unaware, perspective. The world of UA is different because of the no cell phones no internet no mass communication thing but the fact that we open in the Soviet Union and Tiffany still recorded I Think We're Alone Now and there was still a Ghost and a bunch of other 80s landmarks still happened unchanged means that, as far as I can tell, all signs point to there still having been an 80s that happened basically the same way it did for us including the AIDS epidemic and the changes in sexual mores that followed.
>   * Chapter title from The Only Hope For Me Is You by My Chemical Romance
> 


**Author's Note:**

> If you're the kind of person who likes to know what a person listens to while they're writing? Feel free to join me in spotify hell
> 
> Also, please feel free to come play with us in [The Umbrella Academy Discord](https://discord.gg/dKz9T2w)! Much like this fic its 18+ and we are absolute losers having way too much fun suffering over this family. All ships welcome or none at all.


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